Chapter 32

I refused a trip to the hospital. Figured I’d sort my own head out.

I’d seen enough of Ninewells to last me a lifetime. Hospital was the last place I wanted to be.

I remember being in a hospital bed. A private room. Uniform outside the door like they thought I was going to get up and walk off.

My hand shattered.

Woozy with drugs and exhaustion.

DI George Lindsay came walking in. His simian slope enough to make me want to shout, “keep your paws offa me, you damn dirty ape.” Guess I had enough sense left in me to keep my big mouth shut. Or else I was just too tired to care.

He scraped over a chair beside the bed.

“This isn’t an interview,” he said. “That comes later.”

I nodded.

An hour or so earlier I’d been in a graveyard, with my hand freshly broken and a gun pointed at the head of a London hard man who seemed the perfect scapegoat for all the pain and suffering I had witnessed.

I would have killed the bastard, too. If Susan hadn’t shown up. Hadn’t made me realise what the fuck I was doing, that I was ready to become exactly like the man before me.

“I’m here,” Lindsay said, “To tell you that I know you’re going to shite me off. I’m not an eejit, even if you keep believing that. No, pal, I’m a fucking copper. A good one, too. Heavy handed? Oh, aye. A cunt? Spot fuckin’ on.”

Hard to believe a man like Lindsay came here just to tell me that I’d been right all along.

“I’m here to tell you that you’ll get away with it this time. Not because I like you. Not because you’re innocent – nobody’s innocent, you know that, aye? – but because you’ll weasel your way out of it. Because that stupid wee lass with her head full of ideals seems to like you. Because you’ll get fucking lucky, pal.”

He leaned in close.

I could smell onions.

“Luck doesn’t last forever. I know that. And somewhere in that thick skull of yours, I know that you know it, too. So if you get out of this, maybe you want to give it a rest. Because the minute you stick your size bloody twelves in, that’s when things get fucked up. I’ve known that about you, pal, from the minute we met. You’re a man with a conscience and a code and all that other bollocks, but you’re also a man who drags his own disaster around with him like a wrecking ball. You want to help people. But you can’t. Can’t even help your fucking self.”

Maybe he got to me, then.

I remember this shiver that ran through my body; a thousand ants scuttling just below my skin.

I’d blame it on the drugs, of course.

How could I ever admit that a man like Lindsay got to me like that?

And how could I ever admit that I thought he was right?

Back home from the station, I slugged aspirin, decided to hit the sack. Sleep it off. I’d had worse than this.

I drifted off, spent the night passed out.

Needed the rest. Clearly.

When I woke up, it was past eleven in the morning. Something was battering at the inside of my skull.

Something I’d forgotten.

I threw off the sheets, and got to my feet. Stumbled through to the kitchen, my legs unsteady. My muscles protested, but I ignored them.

This thing – this idea – refused to leave. It was like seeing something on the periphery of your vision, but every time you turn to catch it, it floats out of view again.

The kettle rumbled on the worktop.

I massaged my temples hard, as though I could somehow work loose this idea which seemed to be so desperately calling for my attention.

The kettle boiled. The switch clicked.

The idea slipped into focus.

The sister.

The paper Wickes had pocketed at the apartment. I’d almost forgotten about it.

Deborah’s sister.

The one Wickes had talked about like she hated him.

Why would Deborah have her address?

Why would Wickes pocket it?

I walked back through to the bedroom, forgetting about the kettle, and grabbed my jacket from where I’d slung it on the end of the bed. I dug inside the pockets. Pulled out the little cross on the chain.

Let it dangle between my fingers.