The thin boy uncurled himself and stood up from the sofa. At school they called him Pencil Norrell. A gangly boy, tall for his age, his head disproportionately large, a head his neck seemed to struggle to hold up. Once of the older boys had stuck a condom over his head, and laughed as he almost suffocated. Pencil Norrell with a rubber top!
Kevin walked over to the kitchen table and picked up the almost empty bottle of cheap vodka that was stood on it. Lipstick marks smeared the spiralled glass at the top. He held it for a moment listening to the sound of his parents' invective mixing with the cutting bray of Tom Good's laugh. Then he smashed it against the wall. His parents stopped, and looked back at him astonished, their mouths agape like cartoon characters.
Sean Norrell was the first to find voice. 'What the fuck you think you're doing?'
And Kevin Norrell punched the jagged, broken bottle forward, as hard as he could, stabbing it into his father's thigh. Sean Norrell squealed like a snared rabbit and dropped to his knees, his hands cupping the wound, watching horrified as blood spilled through his spread fingers.
Thirty-two years later on and Norrell held up his own hand, letting the shower water run through his fingers, shaking his head as if to clear the memories.
His father hadn't died that night. The damage to his thigh was excruciating but treatable, an inch higher and it would have been his groin, the surgeon had pointed out, and that would have been a lot more serious. Sent home from hospital he managed to sell the remaining lump of cannabis resin he had left and pay Mickey Ryan most of what he owed him, not enough to save himself from a beating, mind, and the boys who gave him it laughed as they remembered that he had been nearly bottled in the nuts by his own son. They made sure to give him a kick or two in the groin before they were done. The kicking reopened the wound and Sean Norrell, rather than seeking medical attention, simply self-medicated with cheap whisky and strong lager and the wound became infected. He died some weeks later from septicaemia.
Norrell turned the shower off and wrapped his towel around himself. He had been in juvenile detention when he had heard the news of his father's death, and if he had shed a tear at the time it was certainly not through grief. As he left the shower block he nodded at a thickset man who occupied the cell next door to his. The man didn't meet his eye and Norrell knew it meant something. But he was ready. The time was long past when Kevin Norrell was going to be anybody's bitch. That interfering, bastard Irish copper was going to make sure of that.
Jack Delaney shrugged. 'So he's not happy where he is. Why should we give a monkey's toss?'
'He claims he knew nothing about Walker's paedophile activities. He fears for his safety at Bayfield.'
'The sooner that shite is put down like a rabid dog the better, you ask me.'
'Not too soon. Norrell claims to know something about your wife's death. That's his bargaining chip. He says he'll only speak to you.'
'And you'll let me do it?'
'I will if you're back on the force.' Diane dug into her pocket and pulled out an unopened letter. 'I never processed your resignation, Jack. Far as anyone knows you've been on extended leave these last weeks.' She smiled once more. 'Emotional problems.'
'You must have been pretty sure about me.'
Diane held the smile like a sniper cradles a rifle. 'Men might not be to my taste, Jack. Doesn't stop me understanding them pretty damn well.'
Delaney finished his pint and stood up.
'Where are you going?'
'I'm going to talk to him.'
Campbell shook her head. 'Not today. I've arranged the interview for tomorrow morning. Come on, cowboy. Sit down, I'll get you another pint.'
Diane Campbell picked up his empty glass and headed for the bar, threading her way through the group of young men who had now started singing, 'Get 'em down you Zulu warrior, get 'em down you Zulu chief.' She had never understood what the song was about, and the prospect of seeing a naked man, however young and fit, held as much attraction for her as a Cherry Cola held for Jack Delaney. She waited at the bar for the drinks and looked back at him. She had put her career on the line keeping him in his job. Bringing down Superintendent Walker, however guilty he might have been, had not enamoured Delaney to the senior brass. In fact she had to outright lie to the powers that be to keep him out of jail, let alone keep his warrant card. Possession of an unlicensed firearm was not looked upon with favour, not to mention the little matter of nearly killing one of her sergeants. That the sergeant in question, Eddie Bonner, helped to cover up Walker's activities was neither here nor there. Sergeant Bonner was dead and, whatever forensic pathologist Kate Walker might think, the dead did not make good witnesses. Diane handed the barmaid the correct change, flashed her a flirty smile then walked back to Delaney carrying the drinks carefully through the packed bar. It might very well come back and bite her on her bony arse, but she reckoned she had done the right thing. Delaney was a good man to have in her camp, she knew that much about him if little else.
Diane handed the Irishman his pint, spying the barely contained violence in brown eyes and figured Norrell better not be yanking on the cowboy's lariat.
Kevin lay on the top bunk in his cell squeezing an exercise ball, the tendons of his hand standing out like ropes of wire as he contracted it. The man below him fidgeted nervously. Norrell didn't blame him. Like the man in the shower, he wouldn't meet his eyes. Something was in the air. He could almost taste the tension. Norrell smiled humorously as he squeezed the ball again. Whatever it was he would be ready to meet it, or die trying. One way or another he was getting out of prison.
Diane Campbell glanced across at the pub windows, noticing that the rain had eased up a little. She sipped on her third glass of mineral water and looked across at Delaney. There was a glassy look in his eyes now, less anger and a softer focus. Not surprising since had moved on to drinking Scotch with his Guinness, for some reason insisting on Glenmorangie rather than his favoured Bushmills, and had had six or seven doubles. She wasn't sure that he hadn't slipped in a quick one or two when she had gone to the Ladies. Never mind about the ban on smoking in pubs, what about putting enough cubicles in and banning women from using the place like a lounge for gossip? She didn't envy a man his penis, that was for sure, but she did admire its functional practicality. She swallowed her drink. She was desperate for a cigarette. Diane looked at Delaney pointedly. 'Come on, cowboy, drink up. I'm taking you home.
Delaney looked at her steadily, the very faintest of slurs in his voice. 'I've got my car outside.'
'Yeah, and that's where it's staying. You're not causing anyone else's death this month. Not on my watch.'
Delaney laughed. 'Did you really just say "not on my watch", Diane?'
'You heard it, partner. The mule is staying parked right where you left it, and I'm taking you back to the High Chaparral.'
Delaney shook his head as he stood up. 'Just drop me off at a Tube station.'
'Which one?'
'Northern Line.' He drained his pint of Guinness, coaxed the last drop of whisky from his glass into his mouth and walked with her to the door. He was almost balanced.
*
Kate Walker didn't normally take the Tube. It wasn't so much that she was a snob, she just didn't like the crammed-in, close proximity of people. It wasn't just the look of them or the smell of them – which was bad enough with their wet, rain-sodden clothes – but she knew what people were capable of, the extent of their random cruelties. As a forensic pathologist she knew that far better than most. If she had learned the hard way that you couldn't trust the people you were related to or worked with . . . then you sure as hell couldn't trust strangers. She wouldn't be taking the Tube at all, in fact, but her car was booked in at the garage for a service and an MOT, and her mechanic wouldn't be dropping it back at her house until the early evening. So she had gone by train and taxi to the cemetery for the funeral earlier that afternoon of the caretaker who had been murdered in the course of Delaney's last case. She was pleased she had been able to take flowers for the grave, but in all other ways the journey had been wasted. She had hoped to be able to speak to Jack, discuss what happened with them, but she might as well have been speaking to the dead caretaker for the amount of emotional response she got from Delaney. The prospect of going straight home to an empty house had depressed her even more and so she had spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and buying nothing. Nothing fitted. Nothing was right. Nothing shifted the black cloud of her mood. And so here she was now, stuck on the Tube with a bunch of people she neither knew nor felt any inclination to know.