Down Among the Dead Men (7 page)

'I'm not sure. Frank told me he's not pressing charges but there could still be trouble. You attacked a police officer, Lin.'

Linda starts to cry again and Em guides her into the bedroom. She undresses her and puts her into bed. Em goes into the bathroom and finds her sleeping pills. She takes one, fills a glass of water in the kitchen and walks back into the bedroom.

'Take this,' she says and Linda swallows the pill without a word. Em goes back into the living room, checks her watch and calls MIT. Linda's attack on Frank will be all over the place and Harris is in no shape to deal with it.

'I'm sick,' she tells DC Rose in a voice that stops any amusement in his voice dead in its tracks. 'I'll be in over the weekend.' She rings off before Rose replies and puts the phone on to charge. She undresses and gets in beside Linda. The two women have their backs to each other but lie close together, skin to skin. Em's not quite ready to let Linda off the hook but wants her to know it will be OK. They both have things they need to say.

'We'll talk when we've had some sleep,' says Em and closes her eyes.

Fifteen

Quinner's phone beeps and he checks the message. Two words: Ghost Ninja.

Before he can reply, the phone rings.

'I'm outside, man,' says Ghost Ninja.

'Then why did you text? Wait, never mind. What is it?'

'Buzz me up. I need to talk to yer.'

'I'm not in the mood for this shit. Not today, mate. You'll have to get Niall to sort you out. It was a stupid idea anyway. Tell him to leave it now. It doesn't matter.'

'I can't,' says Jason. 'You need to talk to us, man.'

Fuck.

'OK,' says Quinner. He moves to the intercom and opens the door for Niall's mate. He can see him on the CCTV camera shuffling gormlessly in the foyer. His eyes keep darting to the sides.

'And it's not the money, man,' he says once he's inside. 'It's Niall. He's been . . . well, he's been all weird since last night.' Ghost Ninja drops his voice conspiratorially. 'The mission!
You
know. Followin' that feller.'

'For fuck's sake, stop hopping about.' Quinner shakes his head. 'You're making me feel dizzy. And what do you mean about Niall?'

'It was fucken mental, brother. Niall just dived right in. Fucken mental.' Jason points vaguely in the direction of the city. 'Down on the dock road, man. Not good. Bad juju.'

'Bad fucking juju? What the fuck are you talking about?'

'Niall!' Jason looks at Quinner like he's stupid. 'That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, man. Niall's all. . .' Jason's voice trails away as he struggles to articulate it.

'Niall's all what?'

'He's fucked up, man. Proper,
good-style
fucked up, I mean. No messin', chief. Like somethin' off the fucken telly. Or the films! Yeah, like in the films.'

Quinner looks at Jason and purses his lips. He tries to remain calm but it's difficult. 'What are you talking about? What's happened to Niall?'

'You'll have to see, man,' says Jason. 'You gotta see.'

'All right . . . Ghost Ninja.' Quinner shakes his head. 'Wait. I'm not calling you that. What's your name? Your real name.'

'Jason. Jason Reeves.'

'Listen, Jason Reeves, we'll call round to Niall's now, OK? He still above the shops in Old Swan?'

Jason nods. 'Yeah.'

Outside the flat Quinner gets a cab. On the journey over to Niall's Quinner makes the cabbie stop at the pharmacy for some paracetamol and a can of Diet Coke. His headache's been building since this morning. Quinner rips open the foil around the paracetamol, wincing at the noise, and gobbles three of the pills. Nursing the Coke he cradles his head as the cab bounces over the potholes all the way down Prescot Road. He fishes out his phone and calls the production office to tell them he won't be on set today. Sore throat. Like they give a shit. He's the writer.

'You're good at making shit up,' says Jason. Quinner doesn't reply. He wants to ask Jason some more questions about last night but is wary in front of the cabbie. He should have done it back at the flat but it's too late now.

Big Niall lives above a bookie's facing a busy intersection. When the cab pulls up Jason hops out, an excited expression on his weasel face. He looks like a dog presenting its owner with a dead rat. Jason presses the bell for Niall's place and holds it down. Even with the noise of the street, Quinner can hear the bell upstairs.

'He's not answering the door.' Jason looks at Quinner.

'No shit,' says Quinner. 'Have you tried his phone?'

Jason shakes his head. 'He's lost his phone.'

Quinner hesitates. 'Lost it?'

'Said he had. Then he just, like, stopped talking.'

'Let's give it another go.' Now he's here, with Jason prancing around like a spaniel, all Quinner wants is to leave. But he can't. Not without seeing what his dopey cunt of a cousin's done.

They push open the battered outer door and head up the narrow stairs to a small landing. Quinner knocks on the door.

'Niall, it's Dean.'

Nothing.

'Niall, you twat. Open up!'

'Told yer,' says Jason, his eager face at Quinner's shoulder. 'He's been like this since this morning, man.'

'You sure he's in?'

Jason's head bobs. 'Deffo.'

'Niall!' yells Quinner, so loud it makes his head throb.

An age passes. And then the door's cracked open an inch. Niall's eye appears and looks at Quinner and then at Jason.

'Well, aren't you going to let us in?'

Quinner realises that Niall's thinking it through.

'For fuck's sake, Nially.' Jason's voice is all false jollity. 'Let's in.'

The chain is lifted and Niall opens the door.

The flat's cramped, the rooms above the shops having been almost endlessly subdivided, but tidier than Quinner had expected. Niall's got the shoebox in reasonable shape, considering. The giant TV is on but there's no sound. Quinner gets the impression that Niall's been sitting with it like that for some time. He has his hands plunged into the pockets of his hoodie and is staring vacantly at the screen, where two orange-faced morning TV idiots are gurning desperately at the camera.

'How did it go, Niall?' Quinner sits down on the sofa at an angle to his cousin. Jason leans his narrow arse against the window ledge and lights a cigarette, his hand tapping out a doof beat against the sill. Everything feels like it's too close together.

'Your mate here says something happened.'

Nothing.

'Come on,' says Quinner. 'It can't have been that bad.'

Niall lets out a long breath. 'I don't want to talk about it,' he says eventually. He fumbles with something in his pocket and pulls
out some money, holding it out to Quinner with his left hand. 'And I don't want the fifty. Keep it. I don't want anything to do with any of this shit.'

'I'll fucken have it,' says Jason. Quinner can't work out if Jason's joking. One glance at his face tells him he's not.

'Don't be a dick, Niall. That's yours.' Quinner's starting to get seriously concerned. For a while the three of them sit there, the only sounds the surf from the traffic outside and the rapid rat-a-tat of Jason's hand against the window.

'Can you stop that?' Quinner points at Jason.

'What?'

'The drumming. I've got a headache.'

Jason holds up his palms in mock-supplication. 'Don't we know it. Jesus, bruv, fucking chill, eh?'

Quinner ignores him and turns back to Niall.

'What happened?' he says, his voice low. 'Did Noone do something?'

Niall shakes his head. 'I don't know.' His voice is almost inaudible. 'I didn't see him.'

Quinner looks over at Jason, who shrugs.

'How do you mean?' says Quinner.

Niall lifts his head and, for the first time since he sat down, looks directly at Quinner while he's talking. 'We followed your feller, just like you said. He headed towards the Pier Head but then carried on down towards the docks. I couldn't see if it was him or not for definite. We'd lost him for a bit.'

'But we picked him up again,' pipes Jason, eager. 'Then we saw him turning down this side road. Spooky as fuck, man.'

'Jason didn't fancy following him.' Niall's voice isn't accusing.

'I'm sorry, Nially,' says Jason. He takes a drag on his cigarette. Quinner notices how young he is. 'Weren't even sure it was him, though, were we?'

'No, we weren't.' Niall looks in the direction of the TV and then back at Quinner. 'But I didn't want to look soft in front of Jason. So like a prick, I followed this guy.'

'And you're not sure it was Noone?' Quinner's getting a bad feeling about this.

'No,' says Niall, 'I'm not. It was dark down there and for all
I know your man went home and we followed some other fucker. Anyway, like I said, I followed him to this street. It was fucken scary as shit down there.'

'Yeah?'

Niall nods. 'Horror movie scary.'

'And?'

'And nothing. The feller wasn't there, not what I could see. If it was this Noone guy, he'd gone. I turned around to get out when something hit me. The next thing I know I woke with me head on the floor.'

There's more. Quinner can sense it. Something bad.

'What else, Niall?'

Niall starts crying silently. Jason stops smoking and stares at Niall like he's turned into a unicorn.

'Niall?' says Quinner, putting a hand on his cousin's shoulder. 'What happened?'

After an age Niall lifts his right hand from his pocket. His hand is bandaged. He raises it and holds it up for Quinner to see. Niall's index finger is gone.

'Christ,' whispers Quinner.

What the fuck had he got into?

Sixteen

'God Almighty.'

Like a diver placing his toes at the end of the high board, Frank Keane stops in the doorway and contemplates the once-pleasant, high-ceilinged suburban bedroom which now resembles an abattoir. He puts both hands on top of his head and lets out a long sigh that he tries not to let anyone hear.

This thing had been called in around eight but Frank had let Theresa Cooper start things off with him coming in as Senior Investigating Officer. It was only a little later that he had second thoughts and decided to see for himself. He and Harris didn't speak much in the car. They haven't spoken, other than what is strictly necessary, since the phone call on Friday. Although Frank went into work earlier today he spent the time at Canning Place. Being Saturday the place was quieter and no one mentioned anything about acid or vinegar or Harris.

She pushes past him now and negotiates her way across the blood-spattered floor towards the dead woman tied to the bed. The room is ripe with the stink of chemicals and blood and death. A familiar smell.

Frank gets into gear and moves into the bedroom, sliding his hands into latex gloves he takes from his jacket pocket. Harris already has hers in place. Both officers are wearing disposable covers over their street shoes. Not quite the full rig, but it'll do. With another body hanging in the garage, almost certainly the husband, neither of them thinks this will be a tricky case. Still, Frank tucks his tie inside his shirt just above the second button. He doesn't want to be careless.

'They were dentists?' says Frank. One of the techs had mentioned it downstairs.

'That's right,' Harris replies absently. 'They work – worked – together.' She looks down at the body. 'Jesus. Theresa wasn't exaggerating.' Her phone rings and she looks at the number before answering. 'I'll call you back,' she says and ends the call. Frank glances her way and then back to the bed.

'I think we need overalls,' says Frank, almost to himself. He looks down dubiously at his street clothes. 'This much blood . . .' He lets the sentence trail off. Harris doesn't seem to have heard him. Frank might think it's his little secret that he's squeamish but Harris is confident that most of the Merseyside Major Incident Team already know and don't care.

McGettigan, the SOC photographer, is shooting a wide-angled image from a corner of the room. He's wearing one of the pale blue protective suits. Despite the amount of gore in the room, and McGettigan's bulk, Frank can't see a spot on the man. Maybe they'll be OK.

After getting what he needs, McGettigan looks up from behind his Nikon. 'She's all yours, DCI Keane. I'm about finished in here. DS Cooper said it was fine to get started. I've done the one in the garage already.' McGettigan nods to Harris, his face colouring before he scurries, rustling, back to the safety of his lens. Keane can't blame him. More confident men than the corpulent McGettigan find DI Harris intimidating, Frank being one of them. Harris is used to being regarded with interest, and sometimes with outright hostility, by some of the neanderthals she comes in contact with on both sides of the blue line, but her looks are what most people register first.

'Take your time, Calum,' says Harris, touching the photographer lightly on the shoulder as she brushes past. McGettigan's neck flushes crimson.

Behind him, Frank can hear the soft conversational murmur of the techs working in the rest of the house. He and Harris have arrived late, and much of the initial scene work has already been done. Faced with the horror on the bed, Frank's beginning to wish he had left it entirely to Cooper, like he planned. At least now he can delegate the autopsy to juniors. There are one or two advantages to heading up the MIT unit.

From the street outside comes the rumble of another police vehicle executing a laborious turn in the narrow dead end. The bay windows are draped in heavy, expensive-looking curtains but they can't prevent the red and blue of the car strobes leaking through gaps and flashing up the walls. There's another incongruous sound too: the bass throb of dance music being played loudly in a car somewhere nearby.

Frank tiptoes to the window and pulls back the curtain. About fifty metres away, on the opposite side of the railway line that bisects the street, are two cheaply tricked-out cars full of teenagers watching the action. Despite the barrier of the railway line they are closer than Frank feels is appropriate. He lets the curtain drop back into place and zigzags his way through the puddles of blood onto the landing.

'You.' A young plod loitering aimlessly near the top of the stairs jerks to attention like a startled deer. Keane gestures towards the street. 'Get the fucking ravers across the way moved along and tell whichever attention seeker's got their disco lights on to knock them off. They're giving me a headache. If it's one of the medics, tell them they can go.'