Still Bleeding

by Steve Mosby

  I was heading round the side of the building when I spotted someone slumped in the tree line off to the side.

  I froze in my tracks.

  It was hard to tell whether it really was a person or not, but it certainly looked like it. Someone was lying there, dressed in blue and curled up in the undergrowth. But if so, they were utterly still.

  For a second, I just stared.

  'Hello?'

  No response.

  I made my way slowly between the trees. As I got closer, I realised what it was and moved a little more quickly. It wasn't a person at all, but a faded blue rucksack that had been tossed away into the grass. I reached it and stopped. It was slightly worn at the bottom, but didn't appear to have been here all that long. If it had, I'd have expected the elements to have knocked it into a slightly more neglected shape. Instead, the fabric was crumpled but clean. It was just lying there, in fact, as though someone knew full well where it was and might come back at any moment and pick it up again.

  I crouched down in the grass.

  Should I open it?

  There was a cord drawn tight around the throat of the rucksack. My fingers hovered there.

  If this - somehow - was what James had wanted me to find then there might be evidence to think about, and the police wouldn't be too happy with me putting my hands on it. I glanced around. But then, I'd already trampled all over the place, hadn't I? And as things stood, there was no reason to call the police anyway. Without interfering with the scene, there'd be nothing to convince them this was a scene at all.

  Which it probably isn't.

  So I loosened the toggle and pulled it down to the end of the drawstrings, then stretched the bag open. From moving it slightly, it felt light, but there was at least something inside. I couldn't make out the contents, so, very carefully, I reached in and used my thumb and finger to lift out the first item it came to. It rustled as it came…

  A sheet of paper, screwed into a ball.

  The letter. My heart started thumping. I knew deep down it wasn't, but ever since James had mentioned it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Had Sarah told him, or had he seen it himself? Did he still have it? It wasn't really important, of course, but for some reason it felt like it mattered.

  This wasn't it though. I uncreased the paper, smoothing it out against my thigh, and it was almost entirely blank, except for the top corner, where someone had scribbled a few words in biro. The writing was messy, but I could just make out:

  Emily Price

  168 Castle View

  I turned the sheet over, but there was nothing else - just the name and a partial address, neither of which were familiar to me. Did the rucksack belong to 'Emily Price'? Or was it someone the owner knew, or had maybe been arranging to meet? I peered into the bag again. The only other thing inside was a plastic water bottle. I pulled it out.

  Jesus Christ.

  My first instinct was to throw it away between the trees. I forced myself not to.

  Don't move.

  The bottle was old, and had been used so many times that the label had come off, leaving white tufts stuck to the glue. And it was empty, in the sense there was no actual liquid in it any more. But the inside was stained a horrible, dirty crimson colour. There were red and black flakes crusted to the inner ridges of the plastic like scabs.

  Blood.

  Just as when Mike had told me about Sarah going missing, it took a second to follow the thought to its natural conclusion. Someone had kept a water bottle full of blood in their rucksack. They'd carried it round with them. And then abandoned it here.

  Why the fuck would someone do that?

  The other thing was that it was empty. There had been blood in it at one point, and now there wasn't. So where had it gone?

  One answer came to me like a shiver.

  They drank it.

  I turned and looked back at the ashes on the concrete floor.

  They sat here and drank it.

  But even as that terrible image settled in my mind, I began to doubt myself. Rationalise it away. It wasn't blood, of course - that was ridiculous. Despite its appearance, the bag could have been here for weeks. The bottle could have held soup, or maybe some kind of drink. Or anything, in fact. There could be any number of explanations, and there had to be, because…

  Because what kind of man carried blood around to drink?

  I think it might have been all right if I hadn't asked myself that last question. Instead, I'd thrown my mind a shape, and it quietly, expertly, turned it around now until it found the worst possible angle, and the answer that went along with it.

  The kind of man, I thought, that steals a body from a field.

  And yet what I'd said to Mike back in the car remained true: that didn't make any sense. There was no way James could know about that, and I couldn't think of a single plausible motivation for him keeping quiet about it if he did. So I crouched there in the undergrowth for a few minutes, thinking it over, wondering what to do.

  Tell Alex this is all his fault.

  James had wanted me to come here to see what I'd done, which implied it would be obvious. But I had no idea what I'd found here, or whether what I was looking at had any connection to my brother at all. This could be random. A coincidence.

  I thought about it some more, and came to a decision. I took out my mobile phone and used the camera on it to take a photograph of the bottle, the note, and the rucksack, and then I replaced the items and took the whole bag round to the other side of the Chalkie, hiding it in one of the bunkers.

  Fifteen minutes later, I climbed back over the barrier and dusted my palms off again on my jeans.

  'Anything interesting?' Mike said.

  'No. Nothing there at all.'

  I slid into the passenger seat. I felt guilty for lying to him, but I'd rationalised it to myself. By not telling Mike what I'd found, I was protecting him. If this was a mistake, I was taking sole responsibility for it: nobody would be able to say that he knew and didn't go to the police.

  'So what do you think it meant?'

  'No idea.' That at least was true. 'Which means I'm going to have to ask him. I'll book in for tomorrow morning. You got the number?'

  'Sure.'

  Mike fished for his phone. I wondered if James would even see me - but I thought that somehow he would. And he could explain it to me in person. I opened my mobile, waiting while Mike checked his own, and looked at the photo I'd taken of the note.

  Emily Price. 168 Castle View.

  Until I saw James, there was at least one more thing I could do. But this time it would be on my own.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  East Street House was located in the heart of the city centre. It rose up between the arched hoardings of high-street shops, dwarfing them: seventeen storeys of glass painted with fractured reflections of the world around. From the pedestrian precinct, looking up, Kearney could see himself in the angled windows of the second floor. Higher up, the building became pale blue. And right at the top - shielding his eyes against the glint of the sun - he saw wispy clouds drifting slowly across, like the building was dreaming.

  'No one scared of heights, are they?' he said.

  'No, sir.'

  The two officers he'd brought with him avoided his eyes a little. Perhaps they were unnerved by how ragged he looked. Well, that was fine; he wasn't particularly in the mood for conversation anyway.

  Inside, the reception area was small. The guard signed them in, phoned ahead to Arthur Hammond, and then pressed a button that allowed them entrance to one of the pair of lifts.

  The three of them shot upwards quickly, in silence. Kearney stood in the centre, facing the steadily illuminating numbers above the door. Rather than just lighting your floor, the electronic display filled in your progress, like a file downloading. As the only alternative was looking at himself - weary and drained - in the mirrors to the side, Kearney watched as the lift went past the ninth, the light stretching steadily acro
ss. The exhibition was on the fourteenth floor. He literally had no idea what was happening on the others. Were they rented by businesses? He'd walked past it a thousand times and never given it a moment's thought.

  Ting!

  When the doors opened, they were met by a short man in his sixties. He was dressed in a grey suit that matched both his neatly combed hair and thick moustache. He was also wearing a waistcoat and a bowtie. Despite his tiredness, Kearney found himself pleasantly surprised by that; people's eccentricities often delighted him. Todd, back at the department, would probably have stared in horror.

  'Mr Hammond?' They shook hands. 'I'm Detective Paul Kearney. We spoke on the phone. These are my colleagues, DS Ross, DS Johnson.'

  'Nice to meet you all. It's this way.' Hammond's shoes clicked down the corridor as they walked. 'I'm sorry if I'm distracted. The exhibition is due to open at seven, and we're seriously behind.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that.'

  'Seriously behind.'

  Kearney nodded, well aware of this by now. He'd spoken to Hammond earlier, following a difficult morning spent tracking down Roger Timms's artwork. In an ideal world, they would be able to recall every single piece, even the ones from before the murders, but five paintings in particular were most important. The Gehenna series.

  Those five, in effect, counted as crime scenes.

  It wasn't easy. Timms had done the exact opposite to what Kearney would have expected with such personal work. Instead of keeping the portraits for his own gratification, each of the five had been sold. The matter was complicated even further by his tangle of finances. Various accounts under Timms's name showed hundreds of payments, in and out, not all of which appeared to correlate with his tax returns or business records.

  Of the Gehenna series, they'd traced one painting to a US dealer, whom Todd was still attempting to locate. Another two were owned by separate collectors down south; they'd both been spoken to, and officers were on their way to collect them. And the final two paintings had been bought by Arthur Hammond, a local businessman and arts enthusiast. He was curating this current exhibition, which was due to open tonight, and he was not happy.

  Kearney sympathised to an extent. However, the man's disappointment wasn't all that high on his list of priorities right now.

  They stopped at a set of double doors.

  Hammond said, 'We're still waiting for several pieces.'

  'Like I said, we're sorry. It's no consolation, I know, but you're about to have two less to worry about.'

  'Two fewer.'

  Kearney had enough time to think did he just correct my grammar? and then Hammond pushed open the doors and walked into the gallery.

  'And those two were already in place.'

  Inside, Kearney was shocked by how white everything was. All the walls were clear and clean; the angles, sharp. The effect was emphasised by the large, bright windows that ran along one side, and by the bulbs embedded in the ceiling. The latter were all inexplicably turned on.

  'This way.'

  Hammond led them through.

  They walked past people in overalls, who all seemed to be either heaving packages across the floor or carefully cutting them open with Stanley knives. There was a hum of electricity in the air. From behind the scenes, Kearney could hear hammering and what sounded like someone drilling through plasterboard: an angry, shrieking whine. Hammond rounded a corner. Two students here were minutely adjusting the angle of a bronze statue. As far as Kearney could tell, it wasn't actually moving.

  'There,' Hammond said. 'What is currently the focus of the exhibition. And will shortly become an empty wall. I suppose the notoriety will at least add something to proceedings.'

  Kearney kept a leash on the anger that buzzed inside at that. Empathy, he reminded himself. After all, Hammond didn't know the precise reason for the seizure of the paintings. From his point of view, he'd worked hard to put on an exhibition, and now two of his prize pieces were about to go missing.

  'The Gehenna series,' Hammond said. 'Part of it, anyway.'

  The two paintings were mounted on a white wall by themselves. Even from a distance, they were striking, and, as they approached, the effect only deepened.

  Both canvases showed the pale face of a woman, tilted to one side, the mouth open in a howl of anguish. Both were surrounded by a hellish, crimson background. On the left, a rough portrait of Linda Holloway. The face on the right belonged to Jane Kerekes. They were stylised, though. Only recognisable if you knew who you were looking for.

  Christ, Kearney thought.

  This is actually them.

  Last night, in addition to his usual activities, he'd done some brief research on the computer. Gehenna, as far as he could discern, was another word for Hell, derived from the Hebrew name for some valley outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was where priests had supposedly worshipped strange gods and made child sacrifices. Afterwards, when those practices had been outlawed, the valley had become a garbage dump where the bodies of criminals were thrown. Fires burned there constantly, and the ground crawled with maggots. Some people thought of it as the literal entrance to the underworld.

  Just as the seed became the tree, Roger Timms had taken the blood of these dead women and given them a different kind of life. He'd sealed them into an image of themselves, crying out in pain, on these two canvases. And then he'd named his series after a fucking rubbish tip.

  Hammond said, 'It is these you were wanting?'

  'Yes.'

  'It's such fine work. It's a shame people won't see them.'

  Hammond was looking at the paintings lovingly. It was obvious that, in his mind, these two paintings were very special indeed. And, of course, they were, but not for the reasons he thought. Looking at them now gave Kearney a chill.

  'No.' He turned around. 'It's not really a shame at all, Mr Hammond. We need you to get these packaged up for us so we can get out of your way.'

  'Absolutely.' Hammond nodded once. 'Of course.'

  If he was offended by the bluntness, he didn't show it, just retreated into the exact kind of polite formality Kearney would have expected from a man in a bowtie and waistcoat. Hammond excused himself, and then the two sergeants separated and paced aimlessly away to either side. Two students began preparing the paintings for transport, lifting the first one down between them very carefully, like a window frame.

  Kearney ran his hand through his hair, annoyed with himself for losing his temper. It was just that urgent pressure beating inside him. And he was so tired.

  It had been after one o'clock in the morning when he'd got home last night. After researching the Gehenna series, he'd then sat up even later - stupidly - clicking through his old files, searching online. It had got to the point where he barely even knew what he was looking for any more. Eventually, close to dawn, he'd woken up in the office chair, then dragged himself across to the bed. When he'd woken only slighter later - driven upright by an image of Rebecca Wingate screaming against a red sunset - the yellow man had been lying beside him.

  And then was gone again.

  Kearney turned on his heels now and walked back across the gallery, seeking out Hammond again.

  'Excuse me,' he said. 'I'm sorry if I was blunt.'

  'Not at all.'

  'This case is very trying for us.'

  'There's no need to apologise, Detective.' Hammond passed a list of papers to someone, then gave Kearney his full attention. 'You do look very tired, if you don't mind me saying so.'

  'I am tired, yes. And no, I don't mind.'

  Hammond was the second person today to tell him that. When he'd arrived at the department, a little after seven o'clock this morning, he'd felt hollowed out and grey. As early as it was, Simon Wingate had been sitting in reception. Perhaps he'd been there all night. Even though it was the last thing Kearney wanted to do, he'd gone and sat down beside him, and Wingate had said the exact same thing. The concern on the man's face had actually scared him.

  Don't worry about that, Kearn
ey had said. It's my job to be tired.

  He glanced behind him now, then back at Hammond.

  'Have you met him? Roger Timms?'

  'I have, yes.' He nodded. 'A few times - at events and so forth. And while purchasing those two pieces, of course.'

  'What's he like? As a person, I mean.'

  'Well, I certainly wouldn't say I know him. In fact, he was always quite distant. All part of the persona, I suppose. But very sure of himself - very astute, you might say. Charismatic too. There was always that slight element of danger to him.'

  Yes, Kearney thought. There was.

  'Because of his crimes?'

  'Yes. It added interest. I suppose that's hard for you to understand.'

  Kearney shrugged. That side of things wasn't so complicated. In his experience, people were always interested in violence - attracted to it, even - so long as it wasn't happening to them. There were harder things to understand.

  'That was all part of it, obviously. An artist's work…' Hammond gestured around, pivoting almost elegantly at the waist, then looked back at Kearney. 'It's rarely just the paintings or the sculptures.'

  'No?'

  'Not the more interesting pieces. These things are just objects, after all. Much work is quite ordinary in and of itself. The effect occurs in your head, you see?'

  Kearney did his best to smile.

  Hammond rested a hand on his arm, leaning in again.

  'Do you remember those university students?' he said. 'There was a lot of controversy. They raised funds for their end-of-year project, and had the examiners meet them at the airport. They'd spent all the money on a holiday.'

  'Oh. Yeah.' Kearney dimly remembered the photographs in the paper: young people tanning themselves by the pool, drinking sangria and looking pleased with themselves. 'I didn't read it all.'

  'They were on the news, in the papers and magazines. Everywhere.'

  'Right. And that was "art"?'

  'No, no. The reality was that they hadn't been anywhere. The photographs and plane tickets were all faked. They were the objects, if you like. But the actual art was all the coverage they generated. The thoughts and discussions.' Hammond stepped back. 'It was downstairs here. They filled four whole walls.'