Send in the Clowns, a Detective Mike Bridger novel (17 page)

Maria moved
onto the road, not caring too much about the passing cars, deftly
weaving between them as she crossed too the other side. Every so
often, she would glance up, appearing to gaze into the sky for no
reason. Bridger followed her line of sight and saw what she was
looking at. Tiny CCTV cameras were looking back at them; he had not
seen these before. There was one on a pole at the entrance to the
car park, and another on the old Hercus Building across the road.
Positioned to view the street outside, it would look directly at
the entrance to the alleyway.

“
Jo, do you know who these cameras are controlled
by?”

“
I’m not sure; maybe the council for the one looking at the
gate area, but the Medical school may have something to do with the
camera on the building. Wouldn’t we have retrieved all the footage
from the cameras in the immediate area already?”

“
I’m sure I haven’t seen anything come across my desk relating
to anything outside of the hospital.” Kicking himself silently, he
made a mental note to retrieve the footage as soon as he
could.

Maria had
moved into the alleyway, she was working on autopilot now. She had
already told them she did not remember anything outside of the
hospital, but being here now, it looked like she had practiced this
route before. Maybe she had walked this route before. Bridger had
no idea how many times she had visited Dunedin in the past. If she
had, a girl of her age would have sampled the nightlife. It made
sense. Many students used the alleyway as a short cut to reach the
Robbie Burns Hotel; her peer group would have included those
students. They were the ones who would have offered the good times
she wanted. She would have been through here before. If she had
done it before, she could have walked this way into town in any
state of sobriety. Her story of not being involved seemed to be
unravelling the more she walked.

Maria stopped
suddenly and looked blankly at the brick wall to her left, lifting
a hand to it and stroking it downwards. Bridger looked at what she
saw and the same Clowns face that he had reacted to earlier with
Kate stared back at him. There were a lot more of them this time,
lined up side by side on the wall, like a ramshackle army of false
smiles and laughs. They were nothing more than advertising posters
-
Wilsons Circus gives back, come and see
the life of a travelling carnival as we march down George
Street
– for some sort of parade. Maria
started moving again, taking his attention from the small
print.

He felt
himself tense up a little as they reached the area where Michael
Wilson’s cold pale body had lain in a pool of bodily fluids less
than a few days ago. There was no sign of him now though, not even
a stain. The cleanup crew had sanitised the place well, well enough
for the hordes of students to walk through oblivious, telling each
other the ghost stories that would now have a ring of truth. Life
goes on.

It looked as
if Maria’s subconscious had given her pause, Bridger watched her
stop and look around. Watching her eyes as she looked at her
upturned palms as if reading something, and then as she turned and
looked towards the fence behind her. Her eyes became confused for a
second before she turned and looked at one spot in particular. Her
eyes did not move and her body began to tremble slightly. Bridger
realised that she was staring at the empty space against the brick
where Wilson had been. The pavement was slightly cleaner in that
area, not surprising with the scrubbing it would have had, but
still it would not have been immediately obvious…, unless you knew
where to look. Maria knew where to look, she had not been shown any
photographs, and she looked directly at it without prompting. Maria
had been involved.

Sometimes the
most obvious answer was the right one. You did not have to be too
clever about things, or over think them, it just complicated a
simple answer.

“
I have seen enough…” Bridger addressed Jane. “Maria will be
coming back to the police station with us Jane.” He heard Jo suck
in a breath beside him. He spoke again before Jane could reply.
“Jo, will you conduct the arrest please.”

Jo moved
towards Maria and placed a hand on her shoulder. She spoke quietly
“Maria Staverly, I’m arresting you in connection with the death of
Michael Wilson.”

Maria did not
reply, instead she stared back defiantly, with a fire behind her
eyes.

Chapter
Fifteen

Maria had
said nothing to the police throughout the procedure she had just
undergone. It was so demeaning, almost intrusive. They had even
taken her DNA by mouth swab. She had half expected to be
strip-searched and have her cavities inspected as well. Although
she would not have minded so much if Jo Williamson had been the one
to do that. She quickly scolded herself for having such a thought
while confined in the little concrete room they had put
her.

Jo had been
so forceful in her voice when she arrested her, but she could see
the uncertainty in her eyes and the slight pinkness of her cheeks.
She knew Jo did not have the conviction of her actions. It was
plain to see. Sitting on the edge of the small bed, she looked at
the concrete wall a few feet from her eyes. Thoughts of denial kept
bouncing around in her head. Did she deserve this? Had she actually
done something? Had she hurt the only man who was like a father
figure to her? A single tear ran down her cheek, wiping it with her
hand she licked the salty taste off her fingers. Crying was an
emotional response that she found strange, not one prone to the
more girly side of her gender. Were they Crocodile tears, or tears
of guilt? She had no idea. Her little blue friend had seen to that,
just as it had seen to most of her life, shielding her from
reality. Irish Mick was murdered, and they arrested her, there had
to be some truth in that. She felt her stomach tighten as a sob
forced its way upwards making her body heave as she let herself go.
Floods of tears came now, real tears, tears only for herself, for
her life. She had to cling on to the thought of Jo; she would sort
this whole thing out. Jo would know what to do. She would cling to
that.

“
There is an actual Clown standing outside in the alleyway,
beside the back gate.” Brian said, as he entered the office. He
walked over to the window and looked down towards the street;
Bridger moved over and stood beside him. “He is just standing
there. I asked him what he wanted but he did not say anything, he
just looked back at me with that silly painted smile they have. His
eyes looked fiery though, it was unnerving. Don’t they ever get out
of character?”

Bridger had
no idea, so just shrugged his shoulders.

“
I guess they have heard about Maria… Do you think she did it
Mike?”

“
I’m not sure Brian, but my gut says she did.” Bridger was
looking out towards the alleyway but could not see the clown. “She
knew exactly where Michael Wilson’s body was on the night. She has
unexplained blood on her top. She has convenient amnesia of that
time. It all adds up.”

“
Well, I have tasked Grant and Becky to sort out the forensics
on the top. The person I spoke too at the lab said they would fast
track the testing. We should have the results in the
morning.”

“
Thanks Brian. I think it is certain to be Wilson’s blood;
there are not too many other explanations that I can think of. All
said and done, I think we have a strong case against Maria.
”

As he said
this, something was bugging Bridger. The arrest had not brought the
feeling of satisfaction that he normally got when turning the key
on a killer. Looking at Brian’s calm features, there did not seem
any doubt in his expression. He just hoped he had made the right
decision.

“
What about our friend Reece Coster?”

“
We have to find him first Brian, he has gone to ground.
Possibly because of the tent fire, but it may be more than that,
given his interaction with Maria on the night of Wilsons
death.”

Grant and
Becky entered the office behind them interrupting the conversation;
Bridger turned around and caught a strange look on Grant’s
face.

“
Did you know there is a Clown standing in the alleyway
outside the rear gate boss?”

“
Yeah, I did Grant, Brian told me he was there when he came
in.” Looking out of the window again, he tried to catch a glimpse
of the strange sight. The strangely elusive colourful figure must
have been standing in the shadow of the building, just out of
sight. “He would be harmless enough though wouldn’t he? He’s just a
clown after all…”

Part
Two-

-The
Clown

Chapter
Sixteen

The stares
just kept coming, but he was used to it. He had been stared at most
of his life. The stares of wonderment and joy radiating from life’s
audience had danced before his eyes for as long as he could
remember. It was a look of fun and innocent trust, given so easily.
He loved it, the adulation of the children, but he knew those
stares were something that would always be the domain of the very
young. The stares grew more mistrust in them the older they got.
When you were older, a Clown outside of the big tent was an
anomaly. Trust always diminished in the perceived lack of reality
that Clowns displayed openly to the safe little worlds of the old.
He blamed the fiction spewed from the minds of Authors trying to
scare their audience with outlandish bullshit that never aligned
with reality.

It was
reality to him though, even if it was make believe to others. He
lived the life. It was all he knew. Others knew nothing about him;
they just saw the painted smile. However, it always seemed that
something different was a threat to them, it made them scared, he
knew that. They had all believed once, bloody
hypocrites.

The
horridness of some of the people in the world that the old
inhabited, gave them their mistrust in the same something different
that always bought them back to the tent. They mistrusted it, but
they would always flock to it in a bid to escape their own reality
for a while. Theirs was a reality fed to them by the media. His was
just reality. When life turned to shit for them, they turned to the
Clown for some harmless make believe; and the Clowns ruled that
make-believe world. The ones that stared at him could laugh at
inside the tent what they were scared of on the outside. It was a
bit of a paradox really, but one that kept him going, and kept the
audience coming back for more.

Right now, he
saw his existence as it was. He watched as every little worker ant
that entered into their concrete lair to hide behind the huge walls
throw him a funny look as they passed. Had these Police officers
not ever seen a Circus Clown before? Did they not have childhoods?
Then he thought they had probably been born into their uniforms
just as he had been born into his own. They must look at him with a
certain amount of mistrust, not believing in anything outside of
the blue they always wore, hidden behind their mask of authority.
It always took a certain type of person to do certain things; they
could not help who they were.

Those that
had discarded their uniforms for the shirt and ties were the ones
you had to watch out for though, they thought differently. These
ones had made a choice within their own worlds, which made them
dangerous. It did not happen in his world, once a Clown always a
Clown. To shed the painted smile was to shun one’s own family. You
could no longer trust someone who no longer wanted to smile and
jest. The police without the uniforms were the same, they did not
smile any more, and he saw more mistrust in them. They made out
they were open to others lifestyle choices, but he knew
differently. They did not always play by the rigid rules of those
in blue, but they still did not believe. They were a Judas to their
own.

He watched
the news on television just like everyone else. He was not
backwards. Time after time, he watched the suited Judas’s make
their assumptions and then act upon them, blindly. Yesterday when
the animals got out, he had seen that one man in the suit standing
next to the other one dressed in black. The one in black looked
like a killer ant with a gun, but the man in the suit looked like
he was the one who wanted to shoot any of the animals that came
near him. It was the way he stood, stupidly brave and scared at the
same time. It was not the animals fault; they did not want to hurt
anyone. They were just doing what came naturally. This man looked
like he would rather that they be back in their cages. Police had a
thing about cages.

This man was
the one who held her in the cage now. He knew that. He also knew
that one man’s belief, bolstered by subordinates trained to mould
the evidence to fit, could ruin another’s life.

His fingers
bunched into his palms, sharp fingernails biting at the skin. The
arrogance that one’s assumption is correct without looking at the
bigger picture made him angry. Behind the thick concrete wall in
front of him was this man’s assumption, held in a cage, displayed
like an animal. She was no killer, she was Circus, and she had
loved Irish Mick, as they all had.