The Blood That Stains Your Hands (16 page)

That's what I tell myself. Jesus looks down upon me and begs to differ.

'I heard a guy on the street yesterday,' I say, finally breaking into the endless hush. Hadn't thought about saying it, the words just appear in my mouth. 'He's on Rutherglen Main Street every day apparently, quoting the Old Testament.'

I pause but she doesn't come in. Nothing to suggest that she knows the guy I'm talking about. Why should she, anyway? Rutherglen Main Street is two and a half miles from here.

'Said something about a leopard. A leopard with four wings on its back and four heads. I don't know, something like that.' I try to think of the exact words he used, but they've gone.

'Daniel,' she says. Her voice edges softly out into the silence.

Ah. The Book of Daniel. Of course. The book that's currently lying on a kitchen worktop in my apartment. That damned book.

'What does the four-headed leopard represent?'

'Well, there's the question. It's the same with all those old books. Scholars, priests, whoever, have placed interpretations on them, and who knows how accurately?'

I feel her looking at me, and finally I turn away from Jesus in Blue. She shrugs.

'Daniel had a vision of four beasts, which were supposed to represent four conquering rulers who would rise and fall.'

'The leopard was the first beast?'

'The third.'

'And the first two? A hyena and a giraffe?'

She laughs. 'A lion and a bear actually.'

'Of course.'

'Although the lion had the wings of an eagle.'

What if the Old Testament was actually written by the Monty Python equivalents of their day, and all that stuff was originally intended as surrealist comedy?

'And the bear had the wings of a dragonfly and the feet of a centipede?' I ask.

She laughs again. I haven't heard her laugh before now. Nice to hear. I don't suppose many of them ever laugh when they're talking about this awful church business.

'No, the bear didn't have wings. It just had ribs in its mouth. I mean, between its teeth, rather than as part of its mouth. I think that's how it is.'

Ribs?

'How many ribs?'

'Three. Why?'

Just like my gormless buddy in the internet café, I ain't got no poker face.

'Three ribs. What kind of ribs? I mean, the ribs of what animal?'

She looks away. Her eyes fall on the large Bible on the lectern. 'Don't think it says. You can look if you like.'

I don't move. Sit there staring at the lectern. Work has just intruded like a spear in the side of the head. That wasn't why I came here. I didn't want to think about work. Not yet.

Maybe I should just go to the park. Try not to think about a lion with wings and a bear with three ribs in its teeth, and Maureen with wings and young Tommy with ribs down his throat.

The third one, the leopard with four wings and four heads. Does that give us any clue as to who or when or why someone will next be killed? Should I be dashing into work with the information? Is it evidence? It's not evidence. A clue then? Something to shunt us off in the right direction?

Can't think straight. Can't think at all.

I've been looking at her the whole time, all this running through my head.

'You shouldn't go back to work,' she says. 'Whatever it is you're thinking, you look pretty messed up. It's like bringing your phone in here. You came here for something other than work.'

I don't speak. I can feel her compassion. At least, I think the compassion is hers. Perhaps it's the guy in blue up in the window.

'I presume there was something with ribs with regard to Tommy Kane,' she says.

'Sorry?'

There's no inquisitiveness in her voice. Resignation almost. As if she's saying, you shouldn't be thinking about work, but since you are, I'm just going to hurry you along, so that you can get past it for the day, and go back to the empty, maudlin thoughts you ought to be having.

'I saw Maureen hanging, same as everyone else around here. She had those wings on her back. They looked... it was bizarre. I didn't know what it meant. I'm sure no one did.'

'We thought they were meant to be angel's wings.'

'We all did. But if you're suddenly getting interested in Daniel 7, then presumably there was something about ribs with the boy. He had ribs in his mouth, or whatever.'

I stare across the aisle. Don't say anything else. The thought of work drills away, alongside its friend, inadequacy. I would have known this days earlier if I'd read the damned book; if I'd bothered speaking to a minister or Bible scholar; if I hadn't kept stabbing 'angel's wings' into fucking Google, like a deranged automaton, incapable of even the slightest lateral thought.

'Go home, Sergeant, or go for a walk.'

I look into the eyes of Mary Buttler. The large Bible on the lectern stares down at me sternly, pushing me away.

*

W
ake up. Lie still for a moment trying to remember what day it is, what's coming in the morning. Work or weekend?

Work.

Reach out for my phone, check the time. 1.31 a.m. Have been in bed for four hours. Stare at the ceiling. Curtains open as always, the room dimly illuminated by the street lights.

Instantly aware of the usual problem. Awake in the middle of the night and straight away my brain starts whirring. Not necessarily about what needs to be done the next day. It can be anything, although it's invariably bad. Memories and thoughts ping in from all areas of the past – entirely random, never good – as though they're being catapulted from various points around the universe of my head.

Pushing that kid over when we were playing in the field. I was eight years old. Nine possibly. He fell into cow shit. He was off school for a couple of days. When he came back you could still see the bruises on his arm from where his mother had beat the crap out of him. Because I'd pushed him into cow shit. I didn't say sorry. Didn't know how. Just never spoke to him again.

That's what's in my head, that memory pinged in from the outer limits, from nowhere. Why did I just think of that?

I become aware of her before turning, think about it for a moment or two, as if the middle of the night is happening in slow motion, and then look over. She's standing at the window, looking down at the street. Holding something in her hand. I watch her for a while, wondering whether I should speak. I should probably get up first. Don't want to talk to her while lying in bed. Maybe if I just lie here long enough, she'll go away; or, at the very least, I'll go back to sleep and she'll be gone when I wake up.

I swing my feet out the bed and sit up.

'What's going on, kid?' I say.

She turns. She's holding a stuffed lion by the ear. It looks pretty old. She's wearing the same dress and cardigan as the previous two times that I've seen her. Is it two? Maybe it's more than that.

'Did you read the book yet?'

Shake of the head.

'I'm there, though. I know I need to.'

'Yesterday was a bad day.'

'Yes, it was.'

What? How does she know that?

'I'll read it in the morning. Going to get up early, go for a run. I'll read the book over breakfast, get into work early.'

She nods.

'That's good. You should.'

She turns back to the window, as though everything that had to be said has been.

'Anything happening out there?' I ask.

'Not tonight,' she says.

I wonder. All I need to do is look away, and when I look back she'll be gone. Is that how it works? I put my head in my hands for a moment, and although it's at first a slightly contrived action, it feels so natural. Sitting on the edge of a bed, leaning forward, head in my hands, feeling confused and wasted and miserable. Ah, you stupid arsehole.

Sit like that long enough that I quite forget that I initially put my head in my hands in the hope that the kid would vanish. So long, in fact, that I forget I'm not alone.

Except that, when I finally lift my head, it turns out I am alone.

Tiredness returns, for all the world like I've been rapped over the head with it. I slide back under the covers, lie down and fall asleep.

––––––––

W
oke up at just after 4 a.m. Went for a run. Stopped at the Esso garage on the way home and bought rolls and bacon and orange juice and milk and coffee. Came home, had a shower, drank two glasses of water, made breakfast, ate breakfast, read Daniel 7 while I ate, and now I'm walking in through the front door of the station at 6.27 a.m.

I'm not saying today's going to be a good day, it's just going to be a day, just any old day, but at least it's not going to be yesterday, and that's all that matters.

Sgt Collins is on the front desk. Will likely be going home at around 7.30. We nod at each other. I head to the stairs, walking quickly, but something makes me stop and turn. Collins isn't looking at me, it wasn't that, but something makes me realise that there are things I need to be told.

'Gerry,' I say, conversationally. He looks up. 'I didn't make it in yesterday. What'd I miss?'

'You see the news?'

Crap. It's never good when the news is mentioned. Ever.
You didn't see the news? There was, like, no crime, anywhere...!
Shake my head.

'Murder on Carmichael Drive.'

Just around the corner.

'Convenient.'

'Couldn't ask for better,' he says.

Don't often get murders around here. Although they seem to be becoming more frequent.

'Tell me everything.'

'Woman in her sixties. Part of this church business the DCI's been investigating. Got shot in the face. Some talk about whether it might have been an attempted fake suicide.'

He pauses. I let him think before bugging him with more questions.

'The husband, he walked in on it, didn't get a look at the killer. Nothing.'

'Might it have been the husband who then made up the interrupted suicide story?'

He shrugs. 'You'll need to speak to the boss.' Another moment's thought, then, 'Guess that's the basics. Puts a new light on the other two from last week, but you probably worked that out already. Being a detective.'

'Fuck off.'

We laugh, and I head up the stairs, the smile quickly dying.

*

'F
rom here you can see the front path. Our guy sees the husband approaching, doesn't have much time. If he was going to try to make it look like suicide, and there's nothing here in fact to suggest that, he suddenly finds he has no time to arrange things. He grabs a cushion, hurriedly shoots the woman in the face, then legs it out the back door. The husband hears the shot, muffled but not that muffled, and by the time he's in the house, he gets to hear the back door close. And, of course, he doesn't run straight to the back door because he's too busy looking at what's left of his wife's face. Which is very little.'

'There goes the tender kiss goodbye,' I contribute to the conversation. As usual, not really helping.

We're in the front room. Body long gone, of course. Still plenty of blood sprayed around, and the marks of the gunshot in the sofa. The pillow is at the lab in town. Everywhere there are signs of crime scene investigation.

I look out at the front of the house to the middle-class detached homes across the street, in this middle-class area. Hands in pockets, I walk to the window. Beside me is one of those Lladro porcelain, I don't know, things. A couple of figures doing the tango. Well, I say tango, but what the fuck do I know about dancing? I watched
Strictly
one night because I was too drunk to press a button on the remote to change the channel, but that probably doesn't make me Lord of the Dance.

The two porcelain figures are on a doily, on a small, round-topped table, built specifically at great expense to hold porcelain figures of people doing shit. As this investigation continues, we turn more and more into Miss Marple. I'll be sitting in front of the TV one night, channel surfing aimlessly, then I'll stumble across ITV3, and there we'll be, me and Taylor, investigating the middle classes killing each other.
Taylor & Hutton,
the show'll be called. Or maybe just
Taylor
, and I'll be relegated to incidental sidekick.

'Foxtrot?' says Taylor, coming to stand at the window and glancing down at the happy couple, forever frozen in fully-clothed near-concupiscence.

'Fucked if I know. I thought it was a tango.'

'When d'you do that move in a tango?' he asks scornfully.

'During the boring bits? I don't know, do I?'

We stop looking at the stupid Lladro and stare out the window. Grey morning. A red car drives by, slowing down, looking at the latest tragic household in the community. It drives on, and once again there's silence from outside.

Autumn leaves sparse in the trees, thick on the ground. The threat of November rain. The kind of day that would be melancholy on any street, and not just when one of the residents has been murdered.

'How d'you know the husband didn't set it up?'

'Neighbour heard the gunshot when the guy was still outside. The killer was obviously rushed, didn't have time to try to muffle the shot as well as he would've liked.'

'Could've been working together, and it's all part of the setup to make us think the husband has nothing to do with it.'

He shrugs.

'Could've been, but I don't think so.'

'Anything to suggest he was going to try to fake a suicide, other than what went on with the previous two?'

'Looks like she was drugged, same stuff as the others. Then he's caught in the act, maybe as he's positioning her fingers on the gun or something, and he panics, knows that the wife is going to be able to identify him, so he pops the bullet in her chops. Takes the gun with him, as there was no point in letting it look like a suicide attempt.'

'What the fuck is he doing?'

'How d'you mean?'

'Drugging them all with the same stuff. Why on earth go to pains to make it look like three people committed suicide, but use this very obvious link?'

'Maybe he's an idiot.'

'But... it's not even like he'd have to be watching CS-fucking-I, is it? He must know that the police could have worked that shit out fifty years ago, never mind now.'