The Unburied Dead (36 page)

'No proof,' I say to him.

'What?'

'We've no proof. Of any of it. It's all speculation.'

He nods. 'I know. That's why it's a pain in the arse.'

'We could be miles off the mark, pishing in the wind. Here's a scenario: Healy kills Keller, then Bathurst. Just in the natural course of his duties as, I don't know, the next Fred West. Josephine Johnson puts Herrod onto Healy, and he gets his comeuppance when he goes to see him. Healy, realising the polis are on to him, buggers off. The next day, Edwards is killed in a hit and run. It happens. Pretty big coincidence, but why not? Meanwhile, some scum confederate of Crow with whom he does business, gets fed up with our slime ex-colleague and does away with the guy. There are probably a thousand people out there who wanted to see Crow dead. So, five deaths and Jonah Bloonsbury has nothing to do with any of them.'

Taylor stares into the white gloom. Thinking. Likes the sound of it, I can see that. And it doesn't sound too far-fetched either. A little, perhaps, but not as outlandish as Jonah Bloonsbury enlisting the help of a psychopath.

'Maybe you're right. Hope you're right. Can you imagine the stench of this if Bloonsbury's our man?'

'Maybe we've been getting ahead of ourselves,' I say. 'So, there's been a coincidence or two. It happens. We'll charge in there to find Jonah sitting getting quietly pished along with Jools Holland, and we're going to look stupid.'

Drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

'Fuck, I don't know, Sergeant…'

We've talked ourselves in a circle, as you do. He descends into silence. Time to mention the other thing that I ought to have mentioned a few hours earlier.

'All right…' I say. 'Then I've got Charlotte Miller to think about.'

'What do you mean?'

Hit the Erskine Bridge; and somewhere bells are ringing to herald the arrival of the New Year. Party. The snow starts to thicken once again.

Here goes.

'She asked me down there tonight. Frank's in Poland, apparently. I mean, who goes to Poland?'

He looks at me. Fortunately not for too long, and turns back to the road.

'And were you going to tell me this sometime?'

'I'm telling you now.'

'For god's sake, Sergeant.'

What with him being right to be annoyed, I naturally go on the defensive.

'What's the problem? You're jealous?'

'Fucking hell. Where were we two minutes ago with this discussion? There are four officers dead. If it's not coincidence, if they're all dead for the same reason, and if it's not Bloonsbury who's done it and he's next on the list, it could be Miller. She knows you know. Why else would she ask you down there?'

He may be right, but I have my defensive annoyance to think about. 'If she was going to do it, then why not do it before now, for fuck's sake? She's had plenty of opportunity.'

'Fuck, I don't know, Sergeant. Just ask yourself why she's banging you in the first place.'

'I told you! Because of the incident with her tits.'

I look at him. The very act of describing the incident with her tits as the incident with her tits, makes me smile, but Taylor ain't smiling.

Silence again. And he's right. The incident of the tits doesn't really explain why a superintendent is going for the likes of me, yet it still doesn't make sense that it should be to keep me quiet. I didn't know a thing about all of this when I first went down there on Christmas Eve.

Nothing to say. The journey continues in silence; and the snow falls in ever more furious flurries, so that by the time we arrive in Hamilton we're driving through a white mass.

Haven't been at Bloonsbury's house since he had a bachelor poker party two weeks after Beattie moved out. Really it was a poker/fuck movie/drugs/alcohol/whore party. The standard police fare. Filled the house up with a bunch of us, raided the warehouse and got what he could, dragged in a couple of tarts that they'd picked up specially the night before. You know the deal: 'come round and shag the lot of us tomorrow night or you're nicked.' Happens all the time. Anyway, sad to say, Detective Sergeant Hutton was in the midst of it all. Steaming out of my face, losing a shit load of cash at the cards, standing in the queue for the women. Jesus knows what number I was in line. Not a proud moment in my career. Some things are best forgotten.

Pull up outside the house, get out of the car into the cold. Up the path, the tangled mass of vegetation that is the garden still evident despite the snow. Wonder what state of decay the house is going to be in.

The place is quiet. Dead. No lights, no sound.

'He's either out, or he's collapsed on the floor,' says Taylor as he rings the bell.

'Probably out somewhere collapsed on the floor,' I say. Pull my coat closer around me; makes no difference. It's bloody freezing.

He rings the bell again and we stand and wait. In vain. Tries the door handle. Locked.

'You ready to put the door in again?' he says.

'You're kidding?'

'Come on, Sergeant, we're not standing out here all night waiting for the guy to wake up or come home.'

'But he could have nothing to do with it. He might just be a drunken pish head. How's it going to look if we go breaking into his house and nothing comes out of it?'

He looks at me
–
the Chief Inspector look.

'Sergeant, break the fucking door down. I'll take the responsibility. Just do it. If someone is taking them all out, Bloonsbury could be lying in there dead, anyway.'

Let out a long breath. Bloody hell, here goes. Glad I've got my boots on.

Foot up, kick hard at the lock with the soul of my boot. The door gives slightly, while I lose my balance, slip and fall on my backside. Into a soft bed of snow. Taylor ignores me, puts his shoulder to the weakened door and pushes it open. Looks back.

'Come on, Sergeant, off your arse,' he says, and walks into the house. Puts on the hall light, looks up the stairs.

'Jonah!'

I dig myself out the snow, brush it off best I can, walk into the house.

'Jonah!' he shouts again.

Dead quiet.

'Right, up the stairs, Sergeant, I'll do down here.'

Taylor walks off into the sitting room
–
the scene of a vast majority of the poker party
–
while I head up to the bedrooms; scene for another part of the poker party. Two bedrooms and a bathroom at the end is all there is up here, if I remember correctly.

Have a vaguely embarrassed feeling, walking into the house of someone who may well be perfectly innocent. Half expect to find him in bed with someone from the station, and I'm going to feel like an idiot.

To the top of the stairs, stop and listen. Nothing.

'Jonah, you there?'

No reply. Feels a bit creepy now that I'm here, even with the lights on. Vaguely unpleasant smell in the air. Wonder if it's death. Don't think so. Assume that anywhere Bloonsbury lives is going to smell vaguely unpleasant.

Walk along the top landing, floorboards creak beneath my feet. Past the regulation police photo
–
the young Jonah with the Secretary of State for Scotland of the day. Ian Lang by the looks of things. His glory days were that long ago.

Push open the door to the front bedroom.

'Jonah?'

Turn on the light. The place is a shit tip. The sort of state your room is in when you're twelve and your mother's forgotten to tell you to clean it up for the last year. The man lives like a pig. Hate to think what sort of lifeforms Taylor's going to come across in the kitchen.

Walk into the room, start poking around his things. Clothes everywhere, blankets tossed off the side of the bed. Sheets and pillows stained. Wonder if he's changed them since the whores were here along with all the guys from the station. By the looks of things, not.

Think I feel it first, rather than hear it. A noise; a whisper of sound. Niggling. Feel it in the shiver down my back. Drop the jacket, the pockets of which I've been looking through. Stand still. Silent. Taylor maybe.

It comes again. A murmur of noise. The next bedroom. A strange sound. Not like a man or woman's voice, but still human. A whimper.

Wish I had a gun again. Ought to start carrying these things around, but still the noise is not threatening. Out into the hall, and now I can hear it more clearly. Feel the pain of it. Hairs rise on the back of my neck.

A noise from downstairs. Taylor stumbling into something, a low curse; calls out for Bloonsbury again.

Stand outside the other bedroom. A second's hesitation. Wonder. Push the door open, no idea what I'm going to find. Half expecting to see a dog whimpering in the corner.

Light on.

Jesus Christ. The smell hits me as much as the sight of what is in front of me; get that instant shock like needles of water under a freezing shower.

Ian Healy, manacled to the wall. Unshaven, cheeks drawn, barely recognisable from the man I spoke to a week ago. He is naked, his arms attached to the wall above him, and from these he hangs limply. His feet can touch the floor, but they offer no support. And around his feet are several days worth of his own faeces and urine and vomit.

Take a step back, try to ignore the smell. He squints from the light, and then looks at me. Acknowledgement flickers across his face, a word tumbles silently from his lips.

'Boss!' I shout, 'think you'd better get up here.'

Can hear Taylor labouring up the stairs. I'm about to plough my way through the human detritus on the floor to let Healy down, when I decide to wait for the boss. He might look like a pathetic shambles of a human being, but he's still a killer. Ann Keller at least, although the truth of the second and third murders is beginning to kick in. Taylor arrives, stands at my shoulder.

'Fuck,' he says to my back.

Finally, after a week and a half of speculation and haphazard supposition, we have something concrete. A piece of living evidence up on the wall which is all the proof we need of Jonah Bloonsbury's involvement in the murders of three other officers.
Fuck
just about hits the nail on the head.

Taylor comes into the room, walks up to Healy. The smell hits him.

'Jesus,' he says. 'This is medieval for God's sake. You got your keys?'

'Remember what this guy did to Ann Keller.'

'We don't know he did anything to anyone,' he says.

'Come on. Maybe the rest was a set up, but how did Bloonsbury get on to him in the first place? This guy killed Ann Keller. Think about what he did to her before you go letting him down.'

He looks at Healy who stares blankly back. At a guess I'd say he has no idea what we've just been talking about. Dead eyes, mouth attempting to smile.

'How long have you been here?' says Taylor.

Nothing.

'Healy, how long?'

A whispered word passes his lips, drops out into the room, unintelligible.