‘So … what’s the prognosis?’ Shallicker asked, taking random turns down empty Crowley streets. They’d been driving this way for what seemed like several minutes now, crazily, haphazardly, and this was the first time he’d spoken.
‘Why are you asking me?’ Lucy said. ‘I’m not a doctor.’
‘Don’t bullshit me, Lucy! I just saw you and Cora coming out. I was waiting for you.’
Her eyes remained locked on the residential roads spooling out in front of them. ‘I’ve been delivering an assault victim to A&E. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Look …’ He’d been chomping a huge wad of peppermint-scented gum, and now bared it, along with several teeth, his massive neck muscles standing out, his sweaty, shovel-like hands gripped on the wheel so tightly that his tendons showed like white bands. ‘Look …’ Apparently, it required an immense, nut-busting effort just to put voice to whatever it was he was trying to say. ‘Look … I might be a scumbag criminal to you, but Frank’s my mate, okay? I’m not just his lackey. We’ve been together for the last twenty-five years. We’ve been through thick and thin … we’ve had each other’s backs in every kind of scrape. Even if you hate me because of my profession, at least fucking respect me as a human being. I’ll ask you one more time … how is he?’
Ultimately, Lucy didn’t see any value in saying nothing. It was nice to see a bastard like Mick Shallicker squirming, but he was the kind of huge fish, who, when he squirmed could do some serious damage – she knew because she’d seen it for herself.
‘He’ll be okay,’ she said. ‘Looks like the bullet bounced off his collar-bone. That’s broken, obviously. But otherwise he’s unhurt.’
Shallicker almost sagged where he sat. His relief was clearly sincere.
‘I’m less sure about Charlie,’ Lucy added. ‘She was undergoing emergency surgery when I left. Whoever it was, they shot her in the left lung.’
‘Fuck …’ he breathed.
‘It didn’t help that you dumped them on the hospital forecourt like sacks of empties!’
‘What the fuck else was I supposed to do?’ He swerved left with shrieking tyres, to avoid sitting at a red light. ‘Call an ambulance? Give a statement? You think Wild Bill would be happy with that?’
‘I’m not sure he’ll be happy that you took them to the hospital at all. Don’t you have your own doctors for this kind of thing?’
Shallicker grimaced, as if this was something he’d been wondering about. ‘Yeah … sure. But that’s not something you can arrange on the hoof. And the way Frank and Blondie were bleeding so badly …’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Panicked, didn’t I! Felt sure they were both goners. Only just had time to get them into a disposable vehicle. After that, well … St Winifred’s was only around the corner. Even then, I didn’t think they were going to make it. To answer your question … I’ll still get a bollocking.’ He licked his dry lips. ‘It may be worse than that.’
‘Well, that’s the price you pay, Michael. For selling yourself body and soul to an organisation that really doesn’t give a shit about anyone.’
‘Mouthy cow you are at times.’
‘Yeah, well, I wonder why!’ She rounded on him. ‘Could it be anything to do with the fact that what you’ve just told me amounts to another load of underworld secrets I’m now obliged to keep from my superiors? You think I enjoy doing that? You think I’m happy being some kind of unofficial repository of gangland knowledge … a helpless spectator while you and the rest of your pathetic brood rape and pillage the whole fucking world!’
He glanced sidelong at her, surprised by the anger in her voice.
‘I’m not onside!’ she shouted. ‘Okay, Mick? I’m not one of you! I’ve got one interest only in what’s just happened to Frank McCracken, and that’s in who shot him.’
‘You don’t need to worry about that.’ He gave a sneering smile. ‘That’s already being taken care of.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
He made no reply.
‘And that’s all I get?’ she said. ‘Nothing? After telling you everything?’
‘You should be happy, shouldn’t you? Proves that I still think of you as a cop.’
‘I need to get back to the hospital … my car’s there.’
‘That’s where we’re headed,’ he said, though at present he looked nonplussed. Having barely seemed to know where he was driving prior to learning that McCracken was going to be all right, it seemed he’d steered them onto a maze-like housing estate and now was having trouble finding his way off it again.
‘Just as long as you know, Mick … you and your bloody mates turn this thing into Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and I won’t help you.’
‘Like we need your help.’
‘I’m telling you, pal. The Crew gets involved in a shooting war in Crowley, and November Division will come after you with everything they’ve got. Me too.’
‘Shouldn’t you be doing that anyway?’
She couldn’t reply to that.
How could she?
It was true.