A Taste for Malice (2 page)

‘We are about to make a request that every male who resides within five square mile of the crime site supplies us with a DNA sample. That request starts here. Given the description of the assailant and the local knowledge he showed, we have to eliminate all of the men in this room from our enquiries. Hence the small cups you have been provided with. We require each of you to return said cup in the morning with a sample of your ejaculate.’

A few of the guys bit down on their lips, but they all nodded their understanding. DC Connelly shifted in his seat, moved through several shades of pink and read the nods of the men around him as a sign that this was a deadly serious matter. Happily, it failed to occur to him that the more usual method of obtaining DNA involved a swab and the inside of the mouth.

Time for a lesson to be learned.

Daryl kicks my foot.

‘Do it now before Peters comes in.’

‘Aye, okay,’ I swallow my grin and walk to the front of the room. I pick up a random piece of paper from the table at the front and turn to face the shift members.

‘Morning guys,’ I say in my best businesslike manner. ‘Yesterday I gave round the sample cups. Most of you have already handed yours in. Just thought I would take in the remainder now before the day starts.’ I look down at the piece of paper in my hand and pretend to read. ‘And we have everyone’s in apart from… DC Connelly.’ I look up from the paper.

He looks at the man sitting on his right, who mumbles something along the lines of he gave earlier. Connelly swallows, looks right and left and then stands up. As he walks the three steps between us his face gets pinker and pinker. As he walks his left hand slides into his pocket and draws out a small container, and even from here I can see his semen sliding thinly in the bottom of the cup.

A huge cheer and raucous laughter erupts.

‘Connelly, you wanker,’ is repeated around the room.

Men and women are in various stages of apoplectic laughter, heads thrown back, holding their sides, wiping tears from their eyes. DC Connelly is rooted to the spot, eyes screwed shut, mouth formed into a grimace.

I pat him on the shoulder on the way back to my seat. ‘You’ll get over it.’

Just then DI Peters walks in to the room holding a clutch of files. He’s wearing his usual expression that suggests he is tired of missing out on the punch line. This time it’s for real.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks, with a half-smile.

‘Nothing much, sir,’ Connelly says as he pockets his tub of semen and sits back down.

Peters’ eyes are drawn immediately to mine. He knows I am involved and he is mightily cheesed off that he isn’t. I stare back at him with a non-committal expression that I know is going to piss him off even more.

‘Right, guys, let’s get on with the business of the day.’ Peters addresses the room. All laughter dies and we are a room full of cops. Assignments are given, files are handed out and I’m the only one that hasn’t been given any work. Those sitting around me offer half-smiles of commiseration. I shrug in return. Could be worse. I could be getting my anus ruptured by a line of power-hungry convicts. All things considered a desk covered in holiday requests and sick notes was not such a poor alternative.

Everyone leaves the room to start work and I am left with Peters. He is sitting on the table in the front of the room. I remain seated at the back.

‘Congratulations on the promotion,’ I say.

‘Right. Thanks.’ He wears an expression of surprise, like he had prejudged my response to his promotion and he had fallen way short.

‘You’ve worked hard for it,’ I shrug. ‘Brown-nose a few journalists, disrespect your fellow officers…’

His expression returns to resignation. ‘Ray, I refuse to bandy words with you. Truth of the matter is I am held in high regard. Whereas your career,’ he pauses for dramatic effect, ‘is fucked.’ He leaves the room.

‘Fair enough,’ I say to the empty space before me. ‘Fair enough.’

Cut the guy some slack, I tell myself. He’s only following his nature. Much in the same way a snake has to slide on its belly.

Well done, McBain. That episode of the cutting of the slack lasted all of two seconds. I just can’t help it; the man is hardwired into my irritation circuit.

A head appears in the doorway.

‘Boss,’ it’s Daryl Drain. ‘You awright?’

‘Why would I not be?’

‘Just fuckin’ asking.’ He shoots me the finger, grins and then disappears. It would take more than a terse answer from me to get through his thick hide.

Before I head for my office I make myself a coffee. I don’t take it from the machine. I make it from scratch. With a kettle and everything. The time taken for this task doubles with this simple choice.

I have kept my old office. No one managed to steal it from me during my absence. As soon as I enter the door I feel the dry, almost oxygen-free heat supplied by our airconditioning system.

Once I drain my mug of coffee I place it on a once-white coaster stained with ring upon ring of coffee spillage. Is that how they age old police has-beens, I wonder? Count the coffee rings on their coaster?

My email inbox is chocka. Good. That’ll take at least an hour to go through.

Internal memo. Internal memo. Internal memo. All fascinating stuff. All completed in that sterile police prose where a Latinate word is seen to be evidence of intelligence. Use words of four syllables or more and you are a fucking genius.

I’m on auto-pilot and barely picking up one word per paragraph when an image grows in my mind. It’s Leonard, the real so-called
Stigmata Killer
and he’s grinning. My forehead is slick with sweat. My forearms burn as a knife flashes.

I push my seat back and look down at my wrists expecting to see a gush of blood. But of course they are concealed under my shirt sleeves, which are white and detergent clean.

‘You alright, Ray?’ a head appears in my doorway.

‘Of course I’m all-fucking-right,’ I answer, then realise it’s Alessandra Rossi. If one person doesn’t deserve attitude, it’s her.

‘Sorry, Ale,’ I wave her in to the room with one hand while the other wipes sweat from my forehead. ‘It’s …’ I feel myself about to launch into an hour long moan, ‘it’s nothing.’ Smile. ‘Just really warm in here.’

She sits down in front of me, ‘Yeah, I understand. Could be better, eh?’ We both know she is talking about something else entirely. I notice she has a pad of paper in her hand. Her script fills the page.

‘Anything I can help you with?’ Then I speak louder for the benefit of anyone lurking outside the room. ‘Like holidays? Time off for medical procedures? Counselling after the death of your favourite cat?’

‘It’s pussy, I’m afraid,’ she grins. ‘Got something lodged in her throat.’

‘Anyone I know?’

‘Fuck off, McBain,’ she stifles a giggle. Then she sobers. ‘Haven’t had the chance to say yet, but it’s good to have you back, Ray.’

‘Thank you,’ the new me answers. The old me would have told her to piss off. ‘It’s good to be back. Kinda.’

She looks at the contents of my desk. ‘Know what you mean. You’re too good a cop to go to waste, Ray. They’ll soon have you back hunting down the psychos.’ We both know that the lack of conviction in her voice is there with good reason. Once you are put out to grass, you tend to stay there.

‘So is the notepad part of your disguise, or did you bring it in for a reason?’ I ask.

‘Ah, Inspector Clouseau is mighty perceptive,’ she says with a poor French accent.

I lift my eyebrows.

‘Ok. Not the best comparison.’ Grin. ‘But it works for me.’

I smile and drum my fingers on my desk. No one else in the room beyond would dare to talk to me in such an irreverent manner. And I love it.

‘It seems Daryl and I are equally out of favour at the moment. There’s nothing there but a vague suspicion that we helped you out …’ She and Daryl had kept me in the loop about police movements while I was on the run as the main suspect in the
Stigmata
case.

‘And let’s keep it vague.’

‘Yes. Absolutely. However, it doesn’t stop them from giving us the shite.’

‘Quite.’

‘You are a poet.’ She says.

‘Don’t I know it.’

‘And if you get too bored with your …’ she looks around my desk, ‘…stuff, maybe Daryl and I could provide you with a shovel.’

‘For the aforementioned shite.’

‘Quite.’ This time her grin has cheese on it.

‘We’ll need to do it on the Q.T. and strictly
entre nous
.’ I grow mock serious.

‘A technique we have used so well in the past. Daryl will visit you next. He will self-destruct after he has spoken with you.’ She sits back in her chair and crosses her legs like a spy handler in a B movie.

‘From your mouth to God’s ears.’

We share a smile this time.

‘How’s Maggie,’ she asks.

‘I owe her a phone call.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘I know, I know, she deserves more.’

‘She’s been a good friend to you, Ray.’ With that, she stands up and leaves the room.

I can’t disagree with her. Maggie has been a great help as I have dealt with the events of the last few months. She turned up out of the blue while I was chasing Leonard and supported me throughout when she barely knew me. She was more of a pal than I deserved. I worried that she was in it for more than my friendship, but in her own inimitable style she told me it was not my dick she was interested in, she simply saw someone in need of help and couldn’t ignore them. And then as I recovered from my wounds, both physical and mental she did what she could to remind me I was still a human being. Refusing to take any of my foul moods, she dragged me out of the house any day when the sun shone and quite a few when it didn’t.

My scars itch underneath my shirtsleeves. I rub the length of my forearms, giving each arm some attention. A flash of memory. I see the line of skin separate and blood flow like water released from a dam. I shiver and remind myself that it is all over. I am safe. The killer is behind bars.

Except, he’s the wrong guy and I’m the only one in this building who knows it.

The call he’d been simultaneously dreading and praying for came when he was just about to put Ben to bed.

‘Mr Hilton, it’s the hospital here,’ the voice was breathy, filled with the import and drama of the news it was about to pass on, ‘... your wife has just come round. How soon can you get here?’

His answering pause was so deep the voice queried, ‘Mr Hilton, are you there?’

‘Right away,’ he answered. ‘I’ll be up right away.’

Jim was not sure which sound jolted him from his thoughts first; the strident note of protest from the telephone which was still in his hand, or the four-year-old asking, ‘What’s wrong, Daddy?’

‘Nothing, wee pal.’ He bent forward and placed a kiss on his son’s forehead. He would never tire of pressing his lips against that space of fresh, warm skin: a reassuring moment of clarity bubbling up from a chaos of thought.

‘But why are you looking so funny?’

Christ. She was actually awake. After three weeks in a coma, Angela was finally awake. Wonderful. Shit. Oh my god. What was he going to do?

‘Daaaaad.’

‘What, son?’

‘You’ve gone all funny again.’ The muscles of his chin were bunched in that pre-warning sign of impending tears.

‘Sorry, baby.’ He knelt down. ‘Daddy doesn’t mean to frighten you.’ He deliberately brightened his posture and voice. ‘That was the hospital. Mummy’s awake at last.’

‘Yeaaahhhh,’ he yelled and jumped up and down. ‘Is she coming home? Is she?’

‘She’s still not well enough, son.’ Before Ben’s face crumpled he added, ‘but we can go and see her now.’

Another yell followed, before his expression altered once again, bottom lip on full tremble. ‘But I’m wearing my jammies, Daddy. You have to change me.’

‘That’s okay, son. They see lots of people in their pyjamas in hospital. It’s practically the law.’

All the way to the hospital Ben maintained a torrent of questions from the backseat.

‘A coma is a long sleep, isn’t it Daddy?’

‘Will she have any new teeth?’

‘Did she have nice dreams at night and scary ones during the day?’

‘Why do you always just say, “Mmmmm” when I ask you something?’

His final question was the one that had been preying on Jim’s mind ever since the phone call.

‘Will you go back to living with Nana and Papa, Daddy?’

For six months prior to Angela’s immobilisation, they were separated and Jim was living with his parents. As soon as the extent of her injuries became clear, he thought it wise to move back into the marital home. It would be best all round, he explained to his parents, less upheaval for Ben. It would be bad enough not seeing his mother without having to move to a new home. An additional benefit was that he would be closer to the hospital, therefore saving time and money on travelling to and fro.

She had sustained multiple injuries during a head-on collision with another car. The nursing staff weren’t sure at first if she would pull through, but despite her long list of injuries, her heart kept beating.

Flesh and bones healed faster than her mind and she entered what Jim described to Ben as a very, very long sleep.

‘With head injuries like this we have no way of knowing what damage will have been inflicted on the patient.’ Dr Bodrum intoned during one of his early visits. ‘Any number of things can have happened, the least of which is memory loss.’ Jim thought his smile was meant to be encouraging, a notion that was at odds with the information. ‘We must wait and see.’ Another smile.

Jim prayed for memory loss. Sounds cruel, but then he could have his family back. He could care for Angela; teach her to fall in love with him again before her memory recovered. Or perhaps, once she was in a better health he could tell her the truth and trust that her reaction would be the best for everyone concerned.

Until he saw an awake and alert Angela he had no idea what to expect. If it turned out that she was suffering from memory loss he had to be the one to tell her the truth of their situation. That meant limiting contact with friends and family until he was in the position to judge the state of her mind.