Bad Samaritan (15 page)

‘I've told you everything I know,' she interrupts, as if desperate to shut me up. She's hugging herself now.

‘I don't believe you.' I allow my frustration to seep in and slam my hand down on the table top. She jumps. ‘You're holding something back. I can smell it. What is it?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Liar.'

‘I'm not lying.'

‘Pants on fucking fire.'

‘Ray,' says Ale quietly. I throw her a warning scowl. Time she got real as well. Yeah, there might be times when I go over the score, but this time I'm on the money. I'm certain of it, and Karen just needs a wee fright to make her tell us what she knows.

Karen is even whiter now. Her eyes dart about the small room as if she's looking for a safe place to land. Somewhere far away from my accusing glare.

‘You're hiding something.' I point at her, my finger like a dagger, invading her space. ‘And you need to tell us now.'

She shakes her head. Shuts her eyes tight.

‘Karen,' I say.

She crosses her arms.

‘Karen.'

Crosses her legs.

‘What are you holding back?'

She puts a hand over her mouth. A word escapes. ‘Matt…'

‘What about Matt?'

‘He…'

There's a knock on the door. It opens slightly and a head sticks in. It's Daryl Drain.

‘Boss.'

‘We're in the middle of something here, DC Drain,' I say, and notice the release of tension in the room, like dirty dishwater escaping down a plug-hole.

‘Sorry. I wouldn't interrupt but this is…' I can tell from his expression that whatever is eating his gusset, it's extremely important. I stand up.

‘Excuse me, Karen. I'll just be a moment.' I leave the room, inwardly cursing. She was on the verge of telling me something, and I doubt we'll ever get back to that moment.

In the corridor I turn to Daryl. ‘Right. This better be fucking good.'

‘It's Kevin Banks, boss. Just took a dive under a truck.'

26

I thumb a text to Maggie.
‘Your place or mine?'

Her reply arrives ten minutes later. Ten minutes while I sit outside her house in my car. It's still early days in our relationship, and I don't want to take anything for granted. Which is a weird thing to say when I'm sat outside her house.

Hers reads,
‘yours?'
Followed by a double kiss. Then a moment later
,
‘Eejit. I saw your car as you arrived. Come on in.'

She stands at her door with hand on hip and her head cocked to the side. Smiling. She stretches up for a kiss as I reach her.

‘If you saw me arriving, why did you wait ten minutes to answer?' I lean down and push my lips against hers. Savour the press and the warmth. Feel a stirring. Lean in to her to stoke the fire. Her face is against mine and I can feel her cheeks press up as she smiles.

She moves back into the hall and I feel a pang of disappointment. ‘Cos, I thought you
'd
just come in,' she snorts a laugh. ‘Instead of sitting out there in the car like Ray nae pals.'

‘We hadn't arranged anything, and I didn't want to just arrive unannounced.' I put on my best sad face.

She goes to say something. Pauses. ‘A mix of consideration and impatience. How could a girl not love that?'

‘Do we shag first, or should I make dinner?' I ask.

Maggie throws her head back and laughs. ‘Again with the consideration and impatience.' She moves towards me. Kisses me long and hard, her tongue caressing mine. Stops. Breathes deep. ‘Dinner can wait.'

* * *

We make it as far as the sofa and after, we lie there naked and sated. I close my eyes and feel sleep about to take me. Maggie nudges me.

‘Hey. What about my dinner?'

‘Right enough.' I grin. ‘We have worked up an appetite.'

She cuts off my chuckle with a kiss.

‘What do you fancy to eat?' I ask.

‘There's nothing much in the cupboard. Mrs Hubbard's been a lazy bitch, frankly. Couldn't be arsed going to the shop today.'

‘Want me to go for a carry out?' Her hand is stroking my chest. Now I know how a cat might feel when it's on the receiving end of some affection. I resist the urge to purr.

She nods. ‘There's any number of take-out places at the end of the road.'

‘Well, this is Glasgow.' I sit up, reluctant to do so as that means her hand will stop stroking me. But judging by the growl from my belly, food is becoming essential. ‘Preference?' I ask.

She shakes her head. ‘As long as it's hot.'

‘What, like me?' I stand and shake my hips. My naked groin is level with her face.

She puts a hand over her face and mock screams, ‘My eyes! My eyes!'

‘Better put some clothes on before I go down to the shops.' I grin. ‘Not everyone appreciates what a hunk of man I am.'

Maggie laughs. ‘Which reminds me. Nothing with cheese, please.'

* * *

Fed and watered, empty cartons congealing on the table in front of us, and we're back on the sofa staring at something or other on the TV. I feel almost relaxed. The news comes on. Kevin Banks's attempted suicide is the lead story.

‘Shit,' I say. My face fills the TV screen and police speak issues from my mouth. The reporter then goes on to say how social networking sites have gone into meltdown. People are furious that a man whose daughter has died under suspicious circumstances has been driven to such a desperate act.

‘What happened, baby?' asks Maggie.

I'm rubbing both hands over my head while posting to the back of my mind the fact that Maggie is comfortable enough to use such a term of endearment. But today's events are in a storm at the forefront of my mind, and the nice stuff will have to wait. ‘Fuck Twitter. Fuck Facebook and all the sad bastards who use them.'

Maggie changes channels.

‘What are you doing?' I turn to her. Hear the note of aggression and instantly regret it. ‘Sorry, I'm…'

‘Do you really want to hear any more? You need to switch off for the day, Ray.'

I fall back into the cushions. ‘For sure,' I agree.

‘How is he?' asks Maggie. Her face full of concern for Kevin Banks.

‘He'll survive.' My sympathy for him is tempered by the fact that his actions have put us thigh-high in the shit. I close my eyes and allow my head to slump back into a cushion at the thought of the headlines the next morning. Sure, the online sites will be alight with all of this, but I can ignore them, can't I?

Nobody could say how he
'd
managed it. He was being escorted back into the station after appearing at the court. And just before the uniforms brought him inside, he
'd
taken advantage of a slip in concentration and wrestled himself out of their grip.

Folk make a run for it all the time, said Daryl Drain afterwards. But they tend to run for safety, not the wheels of the no. 77 bus. The uniform who tried to re-capture him reported that it was as if Banks was aiming for the bus, rather than trying to get away from him.

Was his grief fuelled purely by the loss of his daughter, or was there something more? Guilt perhaps? We did get confirmation from Mrs Banks that her husband was home that night. Even the nosy neighbour confirmed that. Could the neighbour be wrong? Certainly Mrs Banks was doped into a stupor, and it's quite possible she had no idea what she was saying when she answered our questions.

Sadly, I've spoken to many grieving parents in my time, but I can't remember one who was driven to kill himself in such a dramatic fashion. At the least they want to find answers. They want to know what happened to their loved one before fully giving in to the tumult of emotion that such an event rouses. To attempt suicide before they are given that detail? I've never come across it, and it makes me question exactly what is going on in that man's mind. Does he know more about this than he is telling us?

To me, this is an act of guilt. Not grief.

27

Helen Davis waits at her living room window, arms crossed, anxiety hanging like a twisting weight just under her heart. Each breath a challenge. Each second until her son returns from the police station hangs on her as heavy as dredged-up sin.

What could they be asking him?

Why are they even interested in him? Yeah, he's been a difficult boy, but surely they don't think he could have anything to do with that girl's death?

The fact that she still can't say her name, even within the confines of her own mind, gives her a little tug of guilt. She swipes it aside with a silent acknowledgement and the words: once her boy is safe from accusation. Or, make that boys?

No smoke without fire. The words scroll through her mind and memory helpfully adds her mother's scolding tone. That was her favourite saying. The old witch. She expected the worst of everyone and couldn't wait to tell you if she was ever proven correct. Even if that proof was only in her own mind.

Her mother's attitude had gifted her a healthy dose of cynicism, but she didn't ever reach the depths of imagination her mother plumbed on a regular basis. It made looking after her in those final years extremely difficult. The number of home helps they went through before she finally died didn't bear thinking about.

Helen turns on the television. Hopes that the sound distracts her. The news comes on. Is that really the time? She checks her phone. It's after 6pm. Where has Matt gone? Surely he's not still at the police station? And if she finds out that they finished with him hours ago and he didn't bother to get in touch, she'll bloody kill…

A name sounds out from the TV. Worries at her attention. Kevin Banks. She steps in front of the screen, the better to see, and the detective who was in her house earlier fills the screen. Handsome guy, she thinks, but needs to cut out the pies, she hears her mother speaking.

With a shake of her head, as if banishing the spirit of her long deceased mother, she tries to make sense of the words coming out of the man's mouth.

As their meaning becomes clear, an involuntary movement has her hand covering her mouth.
Oh my God. Kevin ran under a bus? Is that what McBain said? What would possess him to do that? Grief must be driving him crazy
.

She recalls the first time she met Kevin Banks. They were waiting to collect their respective children from some event or other. The kids playing it cool. Not wanting the olds to meet.
Of course I was curious
, she thinks.
This girl was taking up a lot of space in my son's head. I wanted to know where she came from.

Kevin had an easy smile, a trusting cant to his eyes, and who wouldn't love that Highland accent? His wife on the other hand was a torn-faced cow. Barely gave her the time of day. Knew she was single and translated that into a threat to her marriage.

She read all of that in the seconds it took to shake that wet fish of a hand and remembers thinking,
you don't know the half of it, darling
.

An endearment that sparks another memory of her mother. Her voice sounds in her mind. She tuts it away. Brushes it from her thoughts like she might flap at a wasp. Her mother was the worst judge of character she
'd
ever come across.

Then her mother is louder than ever.

It saves you time, darling.
She even managed to imbue that endearment with the tone of doom.
Expect the worst from everyone and sooner than you know, someone is going to prove you right.

* * *

Jim Leonard has been sitting at the church computer, just an hour distant by car from the Davis family. He's been waiting with the patience and focus of a hunter. Waiting for Simon Davis to go active on the twin counselling website.

He has a strong feeling about this one. A thrill in the gut that he's not felt since he took a knife to that old hag of a nun.
Doing God's work my backside
, he thought. The woman was clearly on the same side of the good/evil divide as he was.

Closing his eyes, he focuses on the excitement of it. The hunger. The charge. Wills it to every cell in his body. Feeling it surround him like a full body halo.

The word “halo” causes a snort of laughter. He revels in the irony. Then dismisses the thought, gathering the sense of excitement to him again. His own dark aura.

Feeling a tremble in his fingertips and a shortness in his breath, he opens his eyes and releases the sensation. It's too much. Demands release. And he's too far away, in every sense of the phrase, from his target. Better not get too caught up at this stage or he'll need to go out and hunt now. That would be sloppy and get him caught.

He acknowledges the debt he has to McBain in finding this target. If it hadn't been for him he
'd
never have come across Davis.
So, you're good for something, Ray, other than eating.

An alert sounds on the computer. Just thinking of him and the internet sends notice of his appearance in the world. He enters a screen and sees that McBain has hit the news again. Another few clicks on the man himself appears. He turns the sound up. Some sap … scratch that, it's the dead girl's father, has run under the wheels of a bus and the media are giving the police a hard time. Grieving parent reacts to arrest. Blah. Blah.

McBain is giving it the usual police speak. As if words of more than two syllables are supposed to be a sign of intellect. At the end of his speech, before the camera stops filming, Leonard notices that McBain gives a small look to the woman on his left. As if checking that his performance was acceptable. She moves her head very slightly in response and raises an eyebrow.

She's a good few years younger than McBain. Clearly in the force or she wouldn't be standing there. The look passing between them suggests something more than just colleagues. Could McBain be having an affair with a workmate?

He pauses the screen. Examines the look that passes between them. Congratulates himself on spotting it, as it would have been missed by everyone else. He hunkers down in his chair, legs stretched out before him, crosses his arms and tries to work out what is going on.

McBain looks hale and hearty. And far too happy for his liking. Sure, he's pale, too heavy and there are dark circles under his eyes. But he's breathing, moving about and far too functional for Leonard's liking.

Of all the people affected by that night in the convent, they are the only two left alive. He really must do something about that. But first. He turns his attention to the female cop.

Attractive face. Slim. A brightness about the eyes that he finds appealing. There's a brain there, not withstanding her connection with McBain.

She's good looking, intelligent and is clearly drawn to McBain.

This won't do, he thinks. This won't do at all.