Seriously, its OK. Something scrunched beneath my shoes as I limped up the path towards the house. Broken glass, childrens teeth, small animal bones Around here, anything was possible.
Right. Yes. She lumbered along beside me, the bags banging against her legs. You see, a lot of people think Kingsmeath was thrown up in the seventies, that its one big council estate, but theres bits of it go back to the eighteen-hundreds, actually, until the cholera outbreak in 1826, this would have been all sugar barons, of course the whole industry ran on slave labour plantations in the Caribbean, and can you get the lock, its the Yale key.
I leaned my cane against the wall, picked my way through the keys. This one?
No, the one with the red plastic bit. Thats it. Were on the top floor.
I pushed through into a dim hallway that had the eye-nipping reek of a pub urinal. A small drift of leaflets, charity letters and takeaway menus spread across the cracked tiles from behind the door. CAMMYS A WANKA!!! scrawled in magic marker on the peeling mildewed walls.
Not far off being a slum?
The stairs creaked beneath my feet all the way up to the third floor, walking cane thudding on the mangy carpet.
Alice dumped her carrier-bags on the floor and took the keys back, working them through her fingers like a string of rosary beads. Then undid each of the doors four security locks their brass casings all shiny and un-scratched. Newly fitted.
She tried on a smile. Like I said, its not exactly great
Its got to be better than where Ive been for the last two years.
Then she opened the door and flicked on the light.
Bare floorboards stretched away down a short corridor, lined with gripper rod, little tufts of blue nylon marking where the carpet had been, exposing a dark brown stain that was about eight pints wide. A single bare lightbulb hung from a flex in the ceiling surrounded by coffee-coloured blotches. It smelled meaty, like a butchers shop.
Alice ushered me inside, then closed the door behind us, locking and snibbing each of the deadbolts. Right, time for the tour
There wasnt enough room for both of us in the kitchen, so I stood on the threshold while Alice clattered and clinked her way through making a pot of tea for two. Cardboard boxes formed a wobbly pile next to the bin one for the toaster, one for the kettle, another for the teapot, cutlery
She unpacked two mugs from a box and rinsed them under the tap. So, is there anything you want to do tonight, I mean we could go to the pub or the pictures, only its a bit late for the pictures, unless theyre doing a late-night showing of something, or theres some DVDs I could put in the laptop, or we could just read books?
After two years of being stuck inside, in a little concrete room with the occasional accident-prone cellmate, there shouldve been no contest. Actually Id rather stay in. If thats OK?
The living room wasnt exactly huge, but it was clean. Two folding chairs the kind sold in camping shops sat on either side of a packing crate in front of the fireplace. She hadnt taken the price-tag off the rug, leaving it to flutter like an injured bird in the draught of a small blow heater.
The curtains were a washed-out blue colour that still wore the chequerboard creases from when they were in the packet. I pulled one side back.
Kingsmeath. Again. As if last time hadnt been bad enough.
Mind you, it didnt look quite as awful in the dark, just a sweeping ribbon of streetlights and glowing windows stretching down to the Kings River the train station on the other side of the water shining like a vast glass slug. Even the industrial estate in Logansferry had a sort of fairy-tale mystery to it. Security lights and illuminated signs. Chain-link fences and guard dogs.
To be honest, most of Oldcastle looked better at night.
And then a trail of gold streaked into the sky. One Two Three BANG a glowing sphere of red embers punctured the night sky, throwing a pair of gravestone tower blocks into sharp relief, washing them with blood.
It slowly drained away until everything was in darkness again.
Alice appeared at my shoulder. Theyve been letting them off for a fortnight. I mean dont get me wrong I love fireworks as much as the next person, but its nearly a whole week after bonfire night and soon as the sun goes down its like Beirut out there.
Alice appeared at my shoulder. Theyve been letting them off for a fortnight. I mean dont get me wrong I love fireworks as much as the next person, but its nearly a whole week after bonfire night and soon as the sun goes down its like Beirut out there.
Another firework burst in a shower of blue and green. The change of colour didnt improve anything.
She handed me a cup of tea. You know, it might help to talk about what happened to Katie and Parker, now youre not inside, because youre safe here and you dont have to worry about being recorded or people-
Tell me about Claire Young.
Alice closed her mouth. Bit her lips together. Then sank into one of the folding chairs. Her mother blames herself. Were not making it public, but shes on suicide watch. Tried it twice before, apparently and-
No, not her mother: Claire.
OK. Claire. Alice crossed her legs. Well, shes definitely in the target range of the previous Inside Man victims nurse, mid-twenties, very fertile looking.
The tea was hot and sweet, as if Alice thought I was suffering from shock. So if it is him hes still hunting at the hospital. Security tapes?
Claire didnt go missing from work. As far as we can tell, she never made it further than Horton Road. With any luck theyll let us have the security camera footage from the area tomorrow.
I turned back to the window. Another baleful red eye exploded over the tower blocks. Is it him?
Ah Pause. Well, that really depends on what happens tomorrow. Detective Superintendent Ness thinks it isnt. Superintendent Knight thinks it is. Bears sitting on the fence till weve had a chance to examine the body and the physical evidence.
That why were here: to decide if hes back or not?
No, were here because Detective Superintendent Jacobson is empire-building. He wants the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit to be a full-time thing. This is his test case.
I pulled the curtains closed. Turned my back on the world.
So What DVDs have you got?
No, you listen to me: were going to fight this! She stops, shifts her grip on the holdall, and stares up at the dark-grey ceiling. Her hairs like burnished copper, a dusting of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Pretty.
A fluorescent tube clicks and pings above her head, never quite getting going, making strobe-light shadows that jitter around the underground car park.
No place for a woman to be walking alone in the middle of the night. Who knows what kind of monsters might be lurking in the shadows?
Her breath plumes around her head. We wont let them compromise patient care to save a few grubby pounds.
Yeah, right. Because thats how it works.
Whoevers on the other end of the phone says something, and she stops for a moment, surrounded by manky vehicles, parked in miserable rows of dents and chipped paint. Raises her chin. No, thats completely unacceptable.
Thats when the music starts violins, low and slow, marking time with her footsteps as she walks towards her car: an ancient Renault Clio with one wing a different colour to the others. Dont you worry, well make them rue the day they decided people didnt deserve their dignity. Well
A crease puckers the gap between her neatly plucked brows. Her eyes are bright sapphire, set in a ring of ocean-blue.
Theres something wrong with the passenger window of her car. Instead of being opaque with dried road spray, its a gaping black hole, ringed with little cubes of broken safety glass.
She peers inside. All thats left of the stereo is a handful of multi-coloured wires, poking out of the hole where it used to be.
For goodness sake! The phone gets clacked shut and stuffed back into her pocket. Then she stomps round to the Renaults boot and hurls her holdall inside.
Footsteps sound somewhere behind her, echoing back and forth as she stands there trembling and spiky. Some other underpaid nobody, making for their crappy car so they can go back to their crappy flat after a crappy day at their crappy job.
The violins get darker, joined by a minor chord on the piano.
She roots through her handbag, then pulls out a jangling mass of keys more suited to a prison officer than a nurse. They fumble through her fingers and tumble to the damp concrete. Cling-clatter their way under the car.
The footsteps are louder now.
She thumps her handbag on the bonnet and squats down, reaching into the oily blackness beneath the patchwork Clio, searching, searching
The footsteps stop, right behind her.
Dramatic chord on the piano.
She freezes, car keys just out of reach.
Whoever it is clears his throat.
She lunges for the keys, grabs them, holds them jagged between her fingers like a knuckle duster, then spins around, back against the drivers door
A man frowns down at her, with his big rectangular face and designer stubble. Are you all right? Hes wearing a set of pale-blue nurses scrubs, his top pocket full of pens. Castle Hill Infirmary ID tag hanging at a jaunty angle. Broad-shouldered. His blond hair, gelled into spikes, glints in the buzzing strip-light. Like something off Baywatch.
The grimace dies on her face, replaced by a small smile. She rolls her eyes, then sticks out her hand so he can help her up. Steve, you frightened the life out of me.
Sorry about that. He looks away, deeper into the fusty gloom, eyebrows knitting. Listen, about this meeting tomorrow: Audit Scotland.
My minds made up. Laura picks through her keys, then unlocks the car door.
Seems like a waste of time, when she could reach in through the broken passenger window and open the thing, but there you go.
I want you to know that were all behind you, one hundred percent. He doesnt just look like something off Baywatch, he sounds like it too.
Thanks, Steve, I appreciate that. She brushes broken glass from the drivers seat, and climbs in.
Steve pulls his shoulders back, chest out. If theres anything you need: Im here for you, Laura.