Harry slept badly, jerking into wakefulness time after time as the night crawled on. His thoughts darted down avenues that led nowhere. His eyes itched and his body was stiff as he stretched under the duvet. No chance of rest until Midsummer’s Eve had come and gone.
For once he was up before his alarm screamed. He drew the bedroom curtains and opened the window. Midsummer’s Eve, but the sky was the colour of slate and the air felt damp. Some things never changed. A June Saturday in Liverpool wouldn’t be the same without the imminent threat of a downpour.
A helicopter engine droned, somewhere out of sight. In the distance, the ferry chugged past the site of the new cruise liner terminal, otherwise the river was empty. Once giant ships had filled it. Even the last act of the American Civil War was played out here, when the Shenandoah lowered and furled its flag for the last time in the Mersey. The captain preferred to surrender to the Royal Navy rather than face the humiliation back home. Pub quiz facts surfaced from the trivia pool in Harry’s brain. The first shot of the war was fired by a cannon from Duke Street, and the warship Alabama was built at Cammell Lairds’ yard to wreak havoc along American shores, sinking Union ships and capturing their crew. Forever cussed, Liverpool gave aid and comfort to the Confederacy even when the cause was lost. Long after abolition in Britain, the slave trade provided rich pickings for the city’s cotton merchants.
Slavery. Wherever he turned, there was no escape from reminders of the way people were bought and sold. It hadn’t ended with the Shenandoah. He thought about the foreign girls brought to England to scrub floors and, if they were pretty enough, to keep the company of any man willing to pay. Denise Onuoha and Lee Welch were naïve young women who dreamt of fame and fortune and finished up dead on a beach, their ambitions scattered like grains of sand.
He hadn’t known Denise or Lee, but his gorge rose at the thought of Kay, lying dead in a thicket beneath Runcorn Bridge. Murdered by a man she loved and who cared so little about her that he made her sell herself in the weeks before he ended her life.
It was as if he’d stared all week at a Magic Eye picture and failed to decode the image concealed within the elaborate pattern. While he stood at the window, the breeze blew his ideas around. Tom was a killer, and Ceri could no longer deny it. Yet she’d seemed to want to defend the man.
‘The police are nowhere near finding the man who killed those poor girls,’ she’d said. And then: ‘Tom Gunter? I don’t believe it.’
Did she fancy Tom? He succumbed to a pang of jealousy, but told himself it was absurd. She wasn’t the type to go for a bit of rough and, besides, she knew Tom was a borderline sociopath. Yet she didn’t want Harry to suspect him of the murders, so much was clear. She’d done her best to nudge his attention elsewhere.
Had she found him attractive, allowed him to touch the same smooth skin that Harry had caressed? She’d talked of her husband suffering rejection, but he’d assumed she meant her obsession with her job, instead of her man. Surely she’d not betrayed Ricky by sleeping with Tom Gunter?
Yet Tom had come into money, more than he could make from booting up a few computers. If he’d had an affair with the coroner, he might have blackmailed her afterwards into paying him to keep quiet. Even though he hadn’t been convicted of murdering that neighbour of his, if news leaked out that he’d slept with Ceri, it would be enough to kill off her chance of ever becoming Chief Coroner.
Kay’s last message was stamped on his brain.
I overheard him talking to someone and what he said was terrifying. He’s done something bad, that’s how he found the rent for our new apartment. This time he is in too deep to get away with it.
If someone doesn’t stop him, he’ll kill someone else.
Who was Kay afraid that Tom might kill – Ceri Hussain, if she refused to fork out any more blackmail money?
No, no, no. He couldn’t accept that Ceri and Tom had been lovers, but he was afraid about what she might have done. He yearned to talk his suspicions through with her, see if he’d deceived himself. It wouldn’t be the first time. But if he turned up at her house, she might slam the door in his face. Why hadn’t he seen it until now? Beneath the courtroom calm, she was terrified.
He showered and guzzled a couple of slices of burnt toast with marmalade before ringing Carmel. The moment he heard her cheery hello, he offered up a prayer. She sounded happy. Jim must be on the mend.
‘The nurse said you can see him this morning. If you’re free.’
‘I’ll be right over.’
‘Are you on your own?’
‘I wondered if Ceri might be with you.’
‘She’s still mourning her husband.’
‘Ricky Hussain? Come on.’ Carmel clicked her tongue. ‘I mean, I’m sorry he’s dead, but…’
‘But what?’
A heavy sigh. ‘I told you what he was like. One of those men who never mastered the art of eye contact. He didn’t understand that breasts don’t have eyes.’
‘You really disliked him, didn’t you?’
‘Frankly, Ceri was far too good for him. When he chatted me up that time, I asked what his wife would think.’ Carmel snorted. ‘According to Ricky, she spent too much time with the dead, not enough with the living. He wasn’t much good as a salesman, he certainly didn’t close the deal with me.’
Harry squeezed the phone in his palm until his hand hurt. ‘She’s never recovered from his death.’
‘It’s the guilt. If only she’d paid less attention to her work, and more to him, he might be alive to this day.’
‘You can’t live by if onlys.’
Ceri had said the same.
‘True.’ She sounded surprised by his harshness. ‘Have you heard about Tom Gunter?’
‘Heard what?’
‘They’ve found him.’
Harry clenched his fist. ‘Where?’
‘Not half a mile away from your place. Around midnight, a teenage girl spotted a man skulking around the Salthouse. She saw he had a knife in his hand. When she hared off towards the Strand, he gave chase, but she ran faster. She’s a sprinter in the county team and she managed to raise the alarm. Within five minutes the man was cornered at the Salthouse Quarter site.’
‘Why do they think it’s Tom?’
‘The description fits. Even in Liverpool, there aren’t too many men with knives hiding out in deserted building sites on any given evening.’
‘Have they arrested him?’
‘No, he’s hiding there, threatening to kill anyone who goes near. The negotiators have been trying all night. The Strand is closed, the whole area is cordoned off.’
Hence the helicopter. He could still hear its distant buzz. The police must be desperate to make sure that their man didn’t get away. Easier said than done. The Salthouse was a vast, soot-stained warren that stood on the other side of the road from the born again dock buildings. The salt traders had deserted it long ago and for years the complex had housed a motley gathering of shiprepairers, chandlers and assorted leftovers from the city’s maritime heyday. When the last business shut its doors, the Salthouse was left to moulder. Eighteen months back, it had disappeared behind a huge grey hoarding as a consortium of developers set about transforming it into yet another shopping mall. But the builders had gone on strike over a pay dispute and a couple of months back, work on the site had come to a halt.
‘Not a bad place to hole up for a few days if you didn’t want to be found.’
‘He couldn’t stay there forever. Sounds like the moment he decided to make a move, he gave himself away. Once they’ve caught him, they’ll lock him up and throw away the key.’
So Kay would be granted justice. Forensic evidence was less easy to intimidate than a witness who was short of money. Harry drummed his fingers on the breakfast bar. In his mind he pictured Tom walking towards the police, hands in the air. Defeated, finished. But where did this leave Ceri?
He didn’t understand that breasts don’t have eyes.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Sorry, wool-gathering. See you shortly.’
He put down the phone. Half of him thought it was a eureka moment, the other half wondered why he hadn’t realised sooner.
The man in the photograph outside the Adelphi must be Ricky Hussain. The owners of Cultural Companions must keep their staff under surveillance – for Casper and Malachy, blackmail might be a lucrative sideline. Ricky had been admiring Denise Onuoha’s ample charms on their way into the hotel. Presumably he’d booked a luxury suite for the evening, while Ceri remained preoccupied with the dead.
Within five minutes he was outside Empire Dock. The obvious thing to do if he was to head straight for the hospital was to pick up his car, turn left out of Empire Dock, and keep clear of any drama down the road at the Salthouse. Of course, he couldn’t contemplate the obvious thing. He’d go for a walk before he visited Jim.
His path took him past the elegant curves of the nearly completed Arena and a gathering of cranes. Tall, green and angular, they resembled alien creatures, visiting from a distant galaxy. Invisible workmen hammered behind the fence. A new Liverpool was taking shape before his eyes.
As soon as he reached the Strand, he saw the barrier across the road. The Salthouse Quarter was a couple of hundred metres further down. Yellow tape and red cones spanned all six lanes of the highway. A couple of paramedics stood next to an ambulance. Beyond them, unmarked white cars and vans formed a blockade. Blue lights flashed, walkie-talkies crackled. Someone was talking through a loudhailer, but Harry couldn’t make out the words. The helicopter swooped low over the Salthouse, then whirled back towards the river.
He crossed the road and headed for the maze of streets behind the Strand and Jamaica Street. They were crammed with small industrial units, silent and shuttered because it was Saturday morning. He didn’t have a game plan, but there was nothing new about that. The atmosphere was clammy and it had started raining again. His shirt was thin and he wished he’d brought a jacket to keep his shoulders dry.
He imagined Tom Gunter hiding in the overgrown remains of the Salthouse at dead of night, wondering what to do next. Even though Tom hadn’t lasted five minutes in the army, he’d probably picked up a few survival skills. He’d spent most of his life in Merseyside and there was nowhere obvious for him to run. He’d have heard small creatures scurry by in the dark, and the quiet drip of water seeping from holes in the roof and walls. Some men would find the hopelessness of it impossible to bear. But Tom would never surrender to the warmth of a prison cell with satellite TV and all mod cons. Not with a life sentence stretching out ahead of him. No wonder there was a stand-off. Tom Gunter never gave an inch.
The rain fell harder as Harry walked down a narrow street skirting a patch of waste ground. Ahead of him stood the fence at the rear of the Salthouse Quarter. Ten feet high and topped with razor wire. If he strained his eyes, he could make out the wording of large red and white posters on the grey boards. They warned that the site was protected by 24/7 security. Had the guards been skiving or sleeping when Tom broke in? Most likely, the money to pay them had run out. He saw more yellow tape, more unmarked vehicles, more police officers with frames made chunky by body armour. Several men and women carried guns. The air was sour with tension.
For a moment Harry felt sorry for Tom Gunter. With such force ranged against him, the man didn’t stand a chance. Harry’s default emotion was to side with the underdog. But when he remembered how Tom had defiled Kay’s mouth post-mortem, any sliver of sympathy was washed away.
A tubby ginger-haired constable, panting and out of condition, ran towards him.
‘You can’t go any further, sir.’
‘What’s happening?’
Sometimes it bothered him, how easy he found it to act stupid. In unkind moments, Jim would say he had a head start.
‘It’s an incident, sir,’ the constable said, as though that answered every question. His voice was scratchy with suppressed anxiety. ‘If you wouldn’t mind moving along.’
‘An incident involving Tom Gunter?’
The constable took a step towards him. ‘Now what do you know about…?’
At that moment, a door in the fence began to open. Harry pointed towards it and the young policeman stiffened. A skinny figure in black skipped out. His movements were jumpy and familiar. In his right hand, he held something.
One of the police officers shouted through a loudhailer. ‘Armed police! Put your weapon down!’
‘Get back!’ the young constable hissed.
Harry saw Tom Gunter lift his clenched right fist. What was he holding?
He dived for the cover of a low brick wall. The impact of hitting uneven, stony ground jarred his whole body, but pain dissolved in the roar of an explosion that ripped the air. As he blinked dust out of his eyes, police officers yelled, but he couldn’t make out the words. Another explosion rocked everything, made the world seem to shift out of kilter.
For a horrifying moment, a man shrieked in agony.
And then came silence. The desolate quiet of horror sinking into stunned men and women.
A few moments passed, though Harry felt as though an hour passed. He heard people begin to move around and call to each other. His elbows and knees hurt, but he was still alive. He raised his head and saw armed men and women moving in the distance, heard people shouting, as if to reassure each other.
‘He pulled a knife!’
‘He didn’t have a gun?’
‘He cut his own throat…’
‘He’s not moving.’
Harry turned to the young constable.
‘Once upon a time, I was Tom Gunter’s solicitor.’
The constable’s voice trembled. ‘I don’t think he’ll be giving you any more business, sir.’