Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) (13 page)

‘You’re a traveller, ain’t you, girl?’ Foley’s voice is pure south London and contains a mocking contempt.

‘I’m Roisin,’ she says, and the Irish in her accent becomes more pronounced. ‘This is a copper’s house. My husband’s a copper too. We’ve already called the police. It looks to me like you’re most definitely in the wrong place, so if I were you, I’d fuck off while you have the means to do so.’

Foley takes a step forward and Roisin subtly alters her position. She’s only got to shout and Fin will call 999. She hopes it won’t come to that. Doesn’t know whether Pharaoh would want this reported. She knows Sophia doesn’t. The poor girl’s got herself into a bit of a situation but it’s nothing that can’t be resolved. These blokes are probably well-meaning and hard-of-thinking uncles or cousins who have had a few cans of lager too many and agreed to help restore the family honour by scaring a teenage girl. Roisin has no time for such things, for these kinds of men. She never had to put up with much in the way of teenage romancing. Travellers don’t really date. Many don’t get to spend time alone with a boy until marriage is up for discussion. That would have been the plan for her, had she not fallen in love with the big, gentle copper who saved her and showed her how life was meant to feel.

‘Got a houseful,’ says Foley to himself, rubbing his nose. ‘All the girls through there, are they?’ He nods at the closed door. ‘That one with the long hair looked a peach. Wouldn’t mind a play with that, to be honest. Wouldn’t mind at all.’

Roisin ignores him. Looks at the older of the two.

‘I don’t know what you want but you won’t find it here,’ she says, flatly. ‘I reckon you’re a couple of blokes who got a bit drunk and took a wrong turn, eh? I reckon you’re feeling a bit silly and a bit embarrassed and want to just go and sleep it off. I’m right, eh? What d’you say?’

Teddy keeps looking at her with the same half-smile on his face. He seems to be making up his mind about something important.

‘You really married to a copper?’ he asks, at length. ‘You a stripper, then?’

Roisin consents to laugh. ‘I can turn my hand to most things, mister.’

‘The bitch still out?’ asks Foley, sniffing something unpleasant into his mouth and swallowing it back down.

‘Bitch?’

‘This bitch,’ says Foley, and holds up a tiny wooden figurine. It shows Pharaoh, viewed on her best day. It’s a beautiful piece of work, done with a tender, worshipful hand.

‘Where did you get that?’ asks Roisin, and finds herself hoping that she gets an opportunity to bite the head off the thing before her husband ever gets a chance to see how much unwarranted perkiness the sculptor has added to Pharaoh’s bust.

‘Lovely thing, isn’t it?’ says Teddy, before Foley has a chance to answer. ‘Flattering depiction but unmistakable. My mate here shouldn’t have taken it but he does appreciate the finer things in life. He’s not alone in that regard. Take our employer. He loves modern art. I’m not much of a fan myself. Some of the stuff in his office gives me a bloody migraine. But he does like his swirls and his patterns and his big blobs of colour. It’s his indulgence. He’s indulged a little too much recently. Got himself in a bit of a pickle. So he’s asking his old friends to do right by him. Calling in a few old debts, you might say. That’s why we’re here. Just wanted to see if we could come to some kind of an arrangement.’

Roisin looks from the older man to the younger and back again. She’s painfully aware of the children upstairs and in the next room. She will fight to her last breath to protect them but hopes to Christ that McAvoy gets her messages before it comes to that.

‘I’m just the babysitter,’ she says, with a wink. ‘Just me and the kids here. I reckon if it’s that important to you then you should go and see her at work. She’s a reasonable woman. Probably all a misunderstanding.’

Foley suddenly snaps his head left and points at the door in the far wall.

‘That lead through to the garage, does it? He in there? The gimp?’

‘Now now, lads, don’t be taking the piss,’ says Roisin, as if this is all grand craic and can soon be cleared up over a pint of Guinness. ‘He’s not a well man. We don’t go in there. I’ve only met him a couple of times and he’s not one for visitors. Why don’t I give Trish a call, eh? See if we can’t get this sorted. I’ll put the kettle on, shall I? Or would you be wanting a glass of whiskey? I don’t know if it’s a Bushmills house or a Jameson; or I’ve no doubt there’ll be vodka . . .’

Without a word, Foley crosses the kitchen and turns the handle on the door to the converted garage. Soft blue light spills out, alongside the sound of a cowboy film playing on the flatscreen TV at the end of Anders Wilkie’s bed.

Roisin starts forward, shaking her head, bringing up the meat mallet. She’d have no hesitation in bringing it down on the chavvy bastard’s arm. Would smash his head open if it comes to it.

‘Stand still,’ says the older man, and produces a weapon with a yellow barrel and a black handle from behind his back. ‘This is a taser, love. Not police issue, mind. Five times as powerful. I shoot you with this and you’ll shit your lovely leggings and that means when I take your pants off you’re going to be all embarrassed. Stay the fuck where you are. And if you say another word I’ll go and use it on the littlest kid I find. That would be yours, I reckon. Saw you turn up with two of them. Ginger one and a black-haired little princess. How do you think she’d cope with fifty thousand volts, eh? I reckon she’d look like she’d been toasted.’

Roisin stands still. Feels a chill creep into her flesh. Tries to send a silent message to the girls in the next room. Begs them with her mind not to come in here, to grab the two upstairs and run for the door.

‘Look at the state of this poor bastard,’ says Foley, standing in the open doorway. ‘This is the bloke, yeah? Fucking pitiful.’

Teddy shows no inclination to go over. He keeps staring at Roisin, like he’s considering his options. Like he has the option of doing whatever the fuck he wants.

‘A hundred grand,’ says Foley, loudly. He’s addressing his comments to the gaunt, half-immobile man in the hospital bed, hooked up to fluids and monitors and staring with hollow-eyed boredom at the flatscreen TV above his bed. ‘He wants his money, matey. I’d get off your arse and get it, if you can. But I don’t reckon you can. So we’ll just wait here until your missus comes home and we’ll ask her.’

‘This is about money?’ asks Roisin, quietly. ‘They’re bankrupt. They used to have a big house. Aector told me. They lost it all. That’s her husband’s debts, not hers.’

Teddy strokes the taser. Looks longingly at the gap between her vest and her waistband.

‘The boss wouldn’t normally be fussed about a hundred grand,’ he says softly. ‘But there have been changes in the way he works. He’s got new friends who expect things to be done a certain way. They expect payments to be made regularly. If those payments aren’t made, they get upset. Our boss would love to carry on being useful. I’d say it would be fair to assume he’s trying to make a point here. You may be a fucking copper, but you still owe what you owe. That seem fair? Oh Foley, you are a bad, bad lad . . .’

In the doorway, Foley is giggling. He’s pulled down his jogging pants and is pissing into the bedroom.

‘He’s not getting up, Teddy. Reckon he’s on the level. This bloke was a player once, was he? Christ, how the mighty have fallen.’

Roisin turns away from the sight. She feels temper prickling, though most of it is directed at herself. She’d wanted to show off. Reckoned that the people fumbling with the back door were no worse than a couple of pissed-up teenagers. She’d planned on being the cool grown-up, on delivering a slap or two and sending them on their way. She recognises something in the eyes of Teddy and Foley: the look of men who have hurt her before.

‘Shall we give him a zap, Teddy?’ asks Foley, tucking himself away. ‘It’s all brainwaves and shit, isn’t it? Might cure him. Or fucking kill him . . .’

Roisin turns as the door from the living room opens. Sophia bursts in, her eyes red and the remote control for the TV in her hands.

Teddy looks at her and begins to laugh. ‘What you gonna do with that, you silly cow? Fucking mute me?’

Roisin swings the meat tenderiser like an ape wielding a club. Teddy yanks his arm back before he can fire and with his free hand, delivers a harsh slap to the side of her face. She rocks back and Teddy steps forward, snarling.

Sophia throws herself at him like an angry cat. She claws at his neck and tries to sink her teeth into his cheek. She spits curses in his ear and tries to ram her thumb into his eye socket. Her mother has taught her well.

‘Foley!’

The young man grabs Sophia by the hair and drags her off his partner. He hits her twice in the stomach and has to step backwards as she vomits all over the kitchen floor. She drops to one knee, and he goes to kick her in the side of the head . . .

The door to the kitchen opens at the same moment that the lights in the room go out. Teddy turns to the door, yelling, and Roisin staggers back, trying to grab the meat mallet. Something whistles past her. A shape. A scent. All wood shavings and rich tobacco. She hears the sound of flesh on flesh and the sharp, hard crack of bone against something hard. She scrabbles back. Finds the light switch. Bathes them all in harsh yellow illumination.

Teddy is dragging the younger man towards the door. Foley is bleeding from the head and his eyes have rolled back like something from a cartoon.

A thin man in a granddad shirt and soft cords is holding a hand up to his eyes, shielding them from the glare. There’s blood on his knuckles. He spots something on the floor and darts forward as Teddy hauls the door open and bundles both himself and Foley into the back garden and the enveloping darkness.

‘Mine,’ says the man, gathering up the dropped sculpture of Pharaoh. ‘Well, your mum’s, actually,’ he adds softly as he places a hand on Sophia’s back and helps her up. ‘Give it to her for me.’

Roisin is too stunned to speak. She raises a hand to the hot slap mark on her cheek and then gathers herself. Rushes to Sophia and takes the crying girl in her arms. There’s sick in her hair and she seems barely able to walk. The front of her jeans is wet.

‘I just wanted to make sure she got it,’ says the man.

He looks awkward. Embarrassed. Vulnerable and lost. He also looks like his hand is hurting. One of his knuckles is already starting to swell. Roisin takes his hand and looks at the injury. His hands have been hurt before. His fingers are delicate and olive-hued; their tips hardened but nimble-looking. She looks at him properly for the first time. Recognises him. From the telly. From the papers. From her husband’s files.

‘You made this?’ asks Roisin, taking the tiny figurine from the crying girl. ‘It’s good. Flattering, but good.’

Reuben Hollow looks at her with eyes so blue that Roisin is put in mind of a Siberian husky. She feels an urge to put a palm on his stubbly face, to smell him, as if they are animals figuring one another out. She lifts his hand and rubs her tiny, warm thumb across the skin, checking for breaks and finding only old injuries. He seems unsure of himself. Looks like he needs a hug more than any man she has ever met.

‘Don’t tell,’ whispers Sophia, holding her fingers to her mouth as if trying to breathe life into a dead mouse. ‘Mum, I mean. She’ll go mental. She doesn’t need it.’ She turns to Reuben. ‘Please. Don’t tell her what happened. This is my fault, I know it.’

Roisin is about to protest but there is a look in Sophia’s eyes that she feels unable to argue with. The girl looks as though she has suffered enough. Roisin understands. Knows that the teenager needs to forget what has just happened to her and not spend all night being interrogated. Did the men mention money? Something about Trish and her husband? None of what has happened feels right to Roisin, but she is finding it hard to concentrate. The handsome man is looking at her with an intensity that is making her skin prickle.

‘Roisin?’

She turns. McAvoy is standing in the doorway. He looks as though a trapdoor has opened inside his body. As though, within him, columns are tumbling like the ruin of Rome.

Then Pharaoh is pushing past him. Taking it all in. Advancing like a warship and grabbing Sophia to her chest; pushing Reuben Hollow with the flat of her hand and telling him, jaw clenched, to get out of her house.

Roisin comes to her senses the moment McAvoy puts his arm around her and asks if she’s okay. Whether the children are okay. Why Hollow was here. What’s happened . . .

When she looks up at him, he is staring at his reflection in the darkened glass; almost imperceptibly shaking his head; pitying the hapless fool who didn’t hear his wife’s plea for help until it was too late.

PART TWO