A Taste for Malice

Michael J Malone

Five Leaves Publications

www.fiveleaves.co.uk

The nurse smoothed the sheet over the form on the bed. The quilt cover was bleached of colour and crisply laundered in that way only hospitals manage. The patient’s face and hands were also slight of colour having had no sun for some time. As the nurse worked she moved her hands more firmly whenever they touched the patient, testing for a response. But none came. None had for the last six weeks.

She ran the back of her fingers down the patient’s cheek. So soft. And not a bruise in sight. What an amazing thing the human body was. This woman had suffered so much damage. Then a long sleep while the body set about healing itself.

The nurse had plenty of other patients; lots of other people demanded her time, but this woman asked nothing of her, only that the various bags, tucked out of sight, were emptied or filled. So she made it her special duty to do what she could to make this young woman comfortable.

‘There, there,’ said the nurse. ‘Aren’t you beautiful?’ Okay, the blond hair was a tad lifeless and could do with a wash, but the rest of her was so darling, as her favourite actresses used to say. She glided her index finger down the ridge of the woman’s nose. It was just the right size for her face; the shell of the nostrils, the line straight and smooth up to the point between finely arched eyebrows. Long, dark lashes rested on her cheek, almost reaching the swell and curve of cheekbones a model would die for.

Lightly, carefully, the nurse caught one eyelid between thumb and forefinger and pulled the eye open. The pupil was a spot of darkness surrounded by an iris that radiated from it in a dazzling blue. Might have known, she sighed. All this and blue eyes too. Lucky bitch. She relaxed her fingers and allowed the slender layer of skin to fall back into place.

It was all so romantic and tragic, like something from a black and white movie. The beauty asleep on the bed for months. Her only visitor a mysterious, handsome man.

Well not so mysterious really, he was her husband. And not so handsome either. Too skinny. Needed a good feed. There was an element of mystery, however, as on one visit the nurse noticed a certain finger on a certain hand was missing a certain ring. Then when she looked again a couple of minutes later it was back in place, a band of gold snug in its groove of flesh like it had never been missing.

Every day the man turned up to sit on the edge of his chair holding his wife’s hand. He stared at her face for the whole hour, silent, as if the energy used in speech would detract from the force he was pouring into the slumbering woman with his eyes.

The nurse sighed and smoothed the corner of the quilt. If only she could attract such devotion. When she first thought of the couple she was reminded of her parents and how they had been lost in each other. Then the incident with the wedding ring had shattered this illusion. In any case no-one could be more devoted to their partner than her parents. Even a small daughter could not impinge on the attention they paid each other.

Her earliest memories were of the floor in the living room being cleared each night after dinner, the scratch and crackle of the stylus before music filled the vacant space and her parents swirled around the room, bodies tight against each other.

She tried to join in, pushing a small hand between their waists. At first her father would gently chide her, throw her in the air and laughing place her on the settee. Then he became more insistent until his laughter changed to shouts. She left the room then in a loud huff to see if they would notice she was gone. They never did.

So she put on her pyjamas, brushed her teeth and put herself to bed like a good little girl. In the dark of her bedroom she listened to the music drifting upstairs and imagined the dance and the spinning shapes her parents made as they moved with grace and art around the room below.

The nurse gently pulled a strand of hair away from the patient’s face. In another life, they might have been friends. Gone for a coffee and cake, with bags of shopping decorating the space around their feet. They could have talked for hours, about everything and nothing. They could have shared the same love of old Hollywood movies. They could have known what the other meant with a simple look, ending each other’s sentences and smiling at the same instant at the same joke.

The husband clearly didn’t deserve her. Regret for mistakes made was loud in the shape of his hunched back as he sat by her side day on day. And what was he doing placing the ring on his finger after he arrived at her bedside? Who would benefit from that little display? That pale band of skin where the ring should have nestled was a sign of one thing only.

That was one thing her father would never have done: been uncaring of his wife’s feelings. Behaving in this manner to his daughter was another thing entirely. A picture of her father bloomed in her mind. His cropped, grey hair and slim dancer’s build. Another picture replaced this, both her parents running down the path of their house towards the car. They turned and waved to her before opening the gate. She kept waving until they were driving down the street. A small act of devotion that her parents missed every time they went off for a weekend’s dancing competition.

Mrs Peele, her babysitter, would pull her back from the window, throw her in front of the TV and switch it on.

‘Not a sound out of you, you little bitch. I’ve got Mr Peele’s dinner to make and I don’t want to be disturbed.’

And there the little girl would sit between meals and bedtimes, terrified to make a sound but eager for the distraction the world of Hollywood could provide. She wasn’t good with the names of the movies, but she would always remember a face, a hairstyle or a dress. She studied the way a manicured hand would hold a cigarette, the way a thought could be implied by the simple act of lifting an eyebrow and the way those strong women held power over the people in their lives.

What power those women held, she thought as she again brought her fingers down the ridge of her patient’s nose. She placed her thumb on one nostril and, pressing against it, closed off one air-line. With her index finger she touched the other side of the nose. Power was a simple thing. Either you take it or you don’t. Either you grab the power or they run over you. She squeezed and brought both fingers tight together.

How long would it take, she wondered.

The patient’s eyelids fluttered. Her chest rose.

For then the tragedy would be complete. The errant husband would be hunched over a grave instead of a hospital bed. The world would sympathise with him. His pain would cause others to shed more than a few tears. The music would build to a crescendo and then the camera would pan out, letting the audience see the vastness of the sky behind him.

The skill with power, the nurse thought, was knowing when to use it. She relaxed her fingers, turned with a squeak of her rubber-soled shoes and left the room.

As the sound of her passage faded, it was replaced with loud and panicked breathing. And the rustle of linen as the patient sat up in her bed.

It’s weird being one of the guys again. The Chief Superintendent said that I wasn’t to consider it a demotion. I would still have the rank of DI and the privileges it inferred, I would just be “out of sight” until the media had “The Mad Detective” out of their system. Those were his words, incidentally, speaking in headlines was his thing. I was sure the public had very little idea of what had really gone on. He, however, lived in fear of something, anything, causing embarrassment to the police and if one of the hacks in the city got wind of my story it would be the end of his career. The press didn’t know I was back.

In the meantime the Super said I should enjoy the rest and the work with DI Peters, who would have the same rank and privileges as me, but who would also have the authority and purpose.

Having your wrists slashed by a homicidal maniac and facing up to some serious childhood demons tends to put a certain perspective on things, so I wasn’t too pissed off with the whole charade.

DS Peters, as was, reflected the positive side of the whole “Mad Detective” thing and was subsequently promoted. His calm (for calm, read too slow to pick up on things) demeanour in the face of the shark-feeding frenzy that was the Scottish media, commended him to the powers-that-be as promotion material. My involvement however, gave cause for concern. For the subtext in this read “a fucking embarrassment”.

All in all I had to be pleased with the outcome of the investigation into my own actions. I could have been reported to the Procurator Fiscal and charged with perverting the course of justice. This would have led to a jail sentence and a very public dismissal.

My representative argued at my hearing that I had been an excellent public servant with many years of an unblemished career. The circumstances surrounding my actions had been stressful in the extreme; not only had some childhood friends of mine been murdered, but I had been charged with said murders.

He went on to argue that the real killer had been caught, an outcome in which I had a large hand. Furthermore, said killer admitted his guilt to the court meaning that much of the evidence supported my actions. Actions which had been taken with no criminal intent, he added. Actions which had never been made public knowledge. Therefore institutional embarrassment had been kept to a minimum.

Now that DI Ray McBain has recovered from the stress of the situation and from the grievous wounds gained in apprehending the vicious madman, he should be made to suffer no more, allowed to learn from the situation and given the task of using his vast experience to help protect the public.

So there.

The muster room is almost full as we wait for DI Peters to arrive. It’s his first day back at work following a holiday, following his promotion. It’s also his first day back to be faced with me, still in a job and still a DI.

I am in the back row with Drain and Rossi, trying not to lounge and show disrespect for my new boss, who isn’t really my boss. Aye right. I could see through their ploy as clearly as if I had received a typed memo entitled Let’s Piss Ray McBain Off — Then He Might Fuck Off and Die. For one thing, it would take more than a promoted and primped DI Peters to hack me off. And for another, there are still a lot of bad guys out there needing locking up. A job that I would need to find a way to do from the purgatory that is admin work.

‘Who’s going to do it?’ Daryl Drain swings round in his chair to face me. He’s a walking cliché of male good looks; square jaw, strong nose and full lips. His hair is cropped blond and his eyes are a powerful shade of blue. I must remember to ask him if he wears coloured contacts.

‘Should really be you, Ray,’ says Alessandra Rossi, hemming me in from the other side. At the same time all three of us turn to face the front of the room and look at the back of a young man’s head on the front row.

The object of our attention this morning is a young, very young detective constable by name of Davie Connelly. He’s relatively new to the shift and fresh out of uniform. And if I hear him say that Billy Connelly was his dad’s cousin one more time, my reactions will be severe and inappropriate.

Did I say that he was also very young? I often think that too much testosterone is wasted on the young. Case in point: DC Connelly. When he’s paired with a more experienced male colleague he has one hand on his balls while he attempts to teach them how to do their job.When he’s paired with a female colleague, he has one hand on his balls and his eyes fixed on their tits while he attempts to teach them how to do their job.

Today is comeuppance day.

Yesterday, using my questionable authority I handed out a small, yellow-topped sample cup to all of the males in the room with the following scenario: ‘A young woman was viciously raped last night between the hours of twelve midnight and one thirty am. She described her attacker as below thirty, white and “quite tall”. She also suggested that he must be local by the way he managed to surprise her and subsequently evade capture when she shouted for help. Luckily for us she reported the crime before she cleaned up and the police surgeon was able to take a sample of semen from the young lady’s thigh.’ I looked around the room and was amazed at how well everyone was keeping their serious faces on. Everyone in the room was aware that this was a prank except the aforementioned DC Connelly.