Bedlam (13 page)

“What’s wrong with you now?” Dennis narrowed his eyes and McNeil ducked his own.

“Nothing is wrong with me. Did you forget I have ten stitches in the back of my head? Sorry if that makes me act a little stupid, Dennis. I’m meant to be on sick leave, remember?”

“All the more reason to bugger off home out of my sight.
Go home, Joey.”

“But …”

“But nothing. You just can’t help messing up and I can’t take the risk of carrying you anymore. Christ, look at you. You actually look worse than you did this morning, if that’s possible. I asked you to do one thing. I asked you to get down here and take a statement. One bloody thing and you couldn’t do it. Could you?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, too bloody late. Were you listening this morning when Mather made me responsible for all your crap? Was that just a line you were spinning when you said you’d get your act together? I don’t know you anymore, Joey. Go home and stay home. Maybe I can salvage something from this mess but don’t bank on it. I’ll call you later when I’ve had a chance to speak to Mather.”

McNeil shook his head. “You’re wrong about me, Dennis.”

“I hope I am, I really do, but you don’t help yourself, and you certainly don’t help
me
. You should have been here, Joey. If you had been, maybe we wouldn’t be looking at another crime scene.”

McNeil shrugged. “Fine, I’ll go, but you’re making a mistake, Dennis. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Warn me? What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“It means whatever you want it to mean.” He stepped away, anxious to put some space between them before he dealt a fatal blow to friendship. He turned back when he remembered the evidence bag in his pocket. His hand tightened around the plastic and he hesitated. Would he be compounding Nell’s guilt by handing it over? And what did it matter if he did? It was his job, after all. All the same he felt reluctance deep inside. She was guilty of something, he just didn’t know what, and hanging onto evidence, no matter how it was obtained, was wrong.

“Hey, Dennis, about that team work you were talking about - catch!”

Dennis fumbled the catch and the blade clattered to the floor in its protective sleeve. He stooped and picked it up between finger and thumb.

“What’s this?”

“The murder weapon, just in case you decide to fall back on real evidence.”

“Whoa …” Dennis reached out and caught McNeil’s sleeve. “Where did you get this?”

“The viaduct, when I was up there doing my own thing.”

“SOCOs went all over there.”

McNeil’s lip curled slyly. He couldn’t resist it. Mary Cameron was heading for a fall. “Yeah, well, they missed it.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“On a ledge under the parapet, not far from where the ropes were tied.”

“You climbed down there?”

“I suppose I must have,” McNeil replied vaguely. He wasn’t totally sure how he’d overcome his fear of heights and got down there on his own. It was all a bit hazy, now he had time to think about it.

“And you didn’t think to call it in, get it lifted in accordance with procedure? You know procedure … that thing you’re meant to follow so when we get a case to court it doesn’t blow up in our face.”

McNeil pulled out of Dennis’ grip and took a step back. “Get someone to check the crime scene photos. The blade was there all along. Don’t blame me if someone wasn’t doing their job.” He turned and headed back down the corridor. If Dennis wanted him gone, that was fine.

“Joey …”

“What?”

“How did you know it was there?”

McNeil threw a bitter smile over his shoulder.

“Intuition.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

When he got to the flat, a delivery van was nosed into his parking spot, its tailgate halfway across the centre line. He leaned on the steering wheel and rested his chin on his forearm, watching wearily as the rhythmic flash of the hazard lights held up the traffic in the narrow street.

“Come on, get a move on,” he muttered. His eyelids drooped. Five more minutes and he’d be crashed out on his bed, and the rest of the world could go to hell.

The men were manhandling a mattress, taking their time, messing about as they struggled between parked cars and bags left out for the refuse lorry. McNeil’s patience was already frayed by fatigue when someone pulled up behind him and leaned on the horn.

He started counting, just like
Minkey had advised, but when he got to ten and the van hadn’t moved and the guy was still beeping, he turned around, ready to suggest politely that he might like to shut the fuck up.

The words got stuck somewhere between his mouth and the pit of his stomach.

Curled up on the back seat, barely visible beneath his discarded overcoat, was Nell. Violet eyes stared straight at him.

“I told you not to leave me,” she scolded softly.

“And I told you I was done with your mind games, done with you.”

“You’ll never be done with me. That’s not how it works.”

McNeil tried to swallow. His throat was parched, his chest tight. Sudden perspiration pricked his brow. He closed his eyes briefly. He wanted everything and everyone to go away and leave him alone - all the crap, the mistakes and the unanswered questions. He wanted to rewind twelve months and start again with Kit as if nothing had happened. He wondered what he’d done in his life that was so bad that he deserved so much heartache.

The guy behind drew him back reluctantly with his manic tooting, and on glancing to the front, he realised the idiots with the mattress had finished their delivery and the van had moved off. He swung into the parking space, switched off the engine and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel, inhaling slowly, discreetly.
Get a grip
, he chanted silently, but it did little to settle his unease.

Lifting his gaze, he watched Nell through the rear-view mirror. It seemed safer somehow to view her indirectly. Unlike the mythical Medusa, he didn’t fear being turned to stone; his fear involved something far more primal.

“There’s an arrest warrant out for you. I should call it in.”

“But you won’t.”

“What makes you so sure?”

She gave the slightest of shrugs in response.

“Why shouldn’t I call it in?” he pressed.

“It would be unwise.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A warning.”

“For whom?”

“For both of us.”

“Explain …”

She wriggled her arms into his coat and pulled it tightly around her thin frame. It wrapped around her twice. “Not here.”

McNeil checked the street. Now the commotion with the delivery was over, the road was quiet. Evening was settling in. The street lights punctuated the darkness with a hazy glow. Snow deadened the ancillary sounds and shrunk the world to the confines of the car. There were no passers-by to observe his actions, or stop and stare in wonder and horror as he escorted a blood-covered girl into his flat. But if he took her in, he’d have taken a step toward a line he wasn’t quite ready to cross.

“I’m a police officer. I’m bound by the law. I have to do what’s right. I don’t have a choice.”

He pulled out his phone, found Dennis’ number and paused. She watched him, unblinking, waiting, and as she did, his need to know the truth caused his resolve to waver.

“You always have a choice,” she continued softly. “It’s entirely up to you whether you make the right one. I can only guide you.”

The whispered voices in his head urged him and cautioned him in equal measure until he felt like a rope stretched taut in a tug of war. He had no idea which team would win or whether he’d be torn apart in the process of the game. As far as Dennis was concerned, he was a write-off. As far as Kit was concerned, he was a failure. He supposed there was nothing further left to lose.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Five minutes. You get five minutes to tell me what’s going on, and if it’s a pile of crap, I’ll take you in myself.”

She inclined her head in agreement, exhaled softly and relief filled the confines of the car like a heady perfume.

He checked the street both ways as he held the car door open for her, and when satisfied that there were no witnesses, he ushered her across the pavement and up the path. Her feet were bare. She left small impressions in the snow and his eyes were inexplicably drawn to the tracks.

Something shifted in his mind.

Something dark.

A small boy stood at the gate, one hand on the post, one foot raised and tucked behind the other, one shoe dangling from his clenched fist. The laces entwined tightly between grubby fingers. He had no coat despite the snow. His cheeks were stained with tears, his T-shirt stained with blood. The shoe swung gently back and forth, hitting the post with a rhythmic thud.

McNeil stared at him as solemn grey eyes stared back, and then the child’s gaze shifted and McNeil was once again aware of Nell at his side. She smiled, reached out her hand and McNeil stepped away, uncertain. When he looked back at the gate, the boy had gone. Virgin snow remained.

He ushered her up the communal stairs, a hand almost, but not quite, at the small of her back, reluctant to touch her, fearful of his own reaction. His heart thudded wildly. Wary anticipation at what was to come quickened his step. He fumbled his keys, and when they slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor, she crouched and retrieved them.

“Thanks,” he said stiffly as she dropped them into his open palm.

He closed the door behind them and leant back against it, watching as Nell stood in the centre of the room turning slowly on the spot, pirouetting on the balls of her feet as her eyes flicked back and forth, cataloguing the mess of his life. Kit’s clothes were still strewn about. The nightstand lay where he had abandoned it the day before, smashed and useless. He felt suddenly vulnerable, afraid that this external chaos revealed too much by mirroring the struggle going on in his head. He was losing control, and he knew it.

His overcoat slipped from her thin frame, and without its protection, the blood staining her hospital gown was revealed. McNeil was shocked at the amount. He wondered how the owner had survived such a blood-letting, if indeed he would. And then he wondered if any of it was actually hers.

“Are you hurt?” he asked gently. This was not the time for a brutal interrogation, yet the urge to demand, rather than cajole, the truth out of her hovered close. He held it at bay with an unsteady hand.

“Not in the physical sense,” she murmured. A shiver shook her entire body. He watched it ripple like a live thing beneath her skin and exit with a shudder.

“Are you cold?” McNeil slipped out of his own jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. The flat was freezing, yet perspiration still clung to him, cold and unwelcome.

“Not especially,” she replied.

“You look it.”

“Appearances can be deceptive.”

McNeil nodded. Wasn’t that the truth? “Look, the heating is temperamental, the gas fire needs persuading, but the shower is hot. Go and clean up, and I’ll make you something to eat. You look like you could do with it.”

She raised a brow and stepped toward him, that funny little deliberate step that drew his eye and attention, one foot placed exactly in front of the other as if a fraction either way would pitch her into some bottomless pit. He thought of the crime scene, the slippery access boards, the endless mud … and the look in her eyes when they first locked with his.

“I thought I only had five minutes,” she said, drawing his attention back to her with a jolt.

“I won’t start counting until you’re done.” In his head, all of a sudden, a child’s voice breathless and high-pitched
. 'Ready or not, here I come.' He flinched, felt his stomach helter-skelter to the floor and reached out to steady himself.

“Promise,” she breathed, stepping closer.

Avoiding the pit himself, he took a cautious step back and shook his head. “My promises don’t count for much these days. I make them and break them.”

She inclined her head as if she knew exactly what he meant,
then in one fluid movement pulled the gown over her head, let it slip to a heap at her feet and stood naked before him.

He stood for a long moment, his eyes locked with hers, fighting the
urge to let his gaze wander. He had no interest in her, not in that way, and yet desire struggled up from the depths of his darker self. He ignored it and held her gaze determinedly.

“The bathroom is through there.” He gestured vaguely, and still she stood, watching him, testing his resolve. He knew it and sought out Kit in his head, his defence,
his voice of reason in an increasingly twisted world. But he was met by silence. His dismay at Kit’s absence was tempered by relief that the additional voices were silent too. It was up to him now, but he was slowly going mad. He had to be. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said wearily and turned and headed into the kitchen.

When he could hear running water and was satisfied that she no longer posed a threat to his equilibrium, he pushed her gown into a plastic bag, a nod to Dennis and procedure, though allowing her to clean up definitely wasn’t following protocol. He shrugged to himself. He didn’t believe she’d killed anyone, no matter what Dennis thought. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of it.

He heated some soup and laid a bowl out ready for her on the kitchen table. He couldn’t stomach anything himself. He had an unwelcome sensation in the pit of his stomach, like he’d gone out and left the gas on, and his whole world was about to explode. ‘Butterflies’ wasn’t the correct description. It implied an eager anticipation, and there was nothing eager about the blackness that curled inside him. It was more than dread and it was building exponentially. He dropped his head in his hands. He needed sleep more than anything, the chance to re-charge. Things would seem clearer in the morning. He ran his fingers through his hair, avoiding the stitches. He’d almost forgotten about his blackout. Maybe he should see his GP, or go back to the shrink, before the voices and images decided to step out of his head and take up residence in the real world.

He looked up when she padded into the room, at her hair loosely wrapped in a towel, her arms folded protectively across her chest. Her feet, as usual, were bare, as if that was their natural state. His heart jolted. His breath caught in his throat. It could have been Kit standing before him wrapped snugly in her dressing gown, a knowing look on her face, invitation in her eyes, a secret smile curving her lips.

“What are you doing in that?” he hissed when violet eyes regarded his with cruel amusement.

Nell ran one hand gently down the other arm, caressing the soft fleece. “You didn’t want me naked.”

“I don’t want you in her clothes, either.”

“Then what do you want, Joe? It seems to me you’re undecided on a number of things.” She slipped into the seat opposite him, tucked her feet up under her and picked up her spoon, sampling the soup delicately as if she was unused to the concept.

He watched distractedly as she ate and tried to pull in all the fragmented thoughts that were swirling in his head. What did he want?
Focus
, he murmured silently. He wanted to know who Nell was, what she was and how she was connected to Jacob. He wanted to know who had killed the vagrants, what had happened at the hospital and whose blood had been spilled. He wanted to know what was happening to him, whether he really was crazy and why he was of interest to a man he’d never met, but most of all, and more than all of that put together, he wanted to find Kit. And he suddenly realised that he was prepared to do absolutely anything to make that a reality.

“What happened at the hospital?”

“You left me. I warned you what would happen if you did.”

“Why did you attack the orderly?” he asked.

“Do you believe that I did?”

“Your gown is covered in blood and it’s not yours. It’s not difficult to draw a conclusion from that.”

“So, you believe it?” she sighed. “You accept the word of those who did not witness the event.”

“What other option do I have?”

“There are many. You just have to be open to them.” She raised a brow in challenge.

“We have the blood, the weapon and victim’s evidence, if he survives.”

“We?”

“The team, the police, my colleagues.”
Even as he said it, McNeil accepted that Dennis was right - he was no longer a team player - certainly not since Kit, but in truth he wondered if he ever had been.

“And, of course, you trust their judgment.” Nell taunted him slyly.

“On this occasion.” Who was he kidding? He didn’t trust anyone but himself, and even that relationship was proving to be unstable.

“Sounds like you’ve already made your mind up.”