'When I told Haggerty this afternoon, it wasn't just because I had to, it was because I was concerned about you, and about the position you might be in. He agreed with me; Bob Skinner agreed with me.'
'And where is my career now, alongside yours? Up shit creek, in their eyes, in mine, in yours and in the eyes of everyone who ever finds out 274 about this. You've rucked me, Mario, just like he did; you're just the same.'
He recoiled from her words. 'I suppose you told Neil everything,' she hissed. 'Of course you did, you always do.'
'No, I didn't; I told him that the bastard knocked your mother about and left, but I didn't tell him why.'
'And he hasn't guessed by now? Don't make me laugh.'
'Don't you compare me to your father either,' he retorted. 'The man is a beast; he's a pederast, a thief and a murderer. When he was in Portugal he probably raped and murdered a child, only they never found the body.
When wee Ivy came along he must have thought all his Christmas Days had come; she looked fourteen, she was willing, and it was legal. No, do not compare me to Jorge Rose.'
'Okay, I won't compare you to anyone. You are unique; I had complete trust in you and you betrayed it. You undermined my career as you were advancing your own. When I think of it, what have you ever given me?
Jesus, you can't even give me a kid.'
She exploded into tears. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, violently. 'Get out of here!' she screamed. 'Get out before I call my office and tell them you've been thumping me. That would look real y good in the News, wouldn't it. Get out, God damn you!'
He was in the doorway when she cal ed after him. 'You don't get it, do you? You don't get the worst part of it. Since I've been a police officer, I've wanted him. It's been my dream that one day I might arrest him; I wanted it so badly it hurt me. I wanted to see him in cuffs, humbled, being slippery and slimy, then scared, in the interview room. I wanted to leave the likes of Charlie Johnston alone with him for ten minutes or so.
I wanted al of that, for my mother, for my sister, but most of al I wanted it for me.
'I was seven when he started on me, Mario. Seven.'
'Mags…'
'Shut up! Just get out, or I pick up that phone and start screaming into it.'
'Where did you spend the night, then?' asked Neil Mcl henney. 'Under the Dean Bridge, maybe? You look like death warmed up in the micro.'
'I thought about going to my mother's, but that would have involved her, and that's the last thing I want. So I went to Paula's instead. So now Greg Jay's lot really have got something to talk about.'
'Oh Christ, Mario, you didn't, did you?'
'Did I sleep with her, do you mean? Keeping it in the family, like? No I didn't, but if I had it would have been…' He stopped himself short, the word 'appropriate' frozen on his tongue. 'Not that Paula was offering, not last night, not with the mood I was in. She switched into mother-hen mode, instead. Even did me a cooked breakfast, whether I wanted it or not.'
'Have you called Maggie this morning?'
'Yup. The sound of the phone being slammed down is stil ringing in my ear.'
'Aw shit. I knew she'd be mad, but not this mad. Do you want me to phone her?'
'That's very brave of you, pal, but there's no sense in the both of us being disembowelled, is there. No,' he pushed himself up from his seat in Mcl henney's office, 'let's go and see Ivy instead. We might do some good there.'
The two big detectives strode outside the headquarters building.
'My car,' said McGuire. 'I know where she lives. It's not that far, actual y.' In fact it took less than ten minutes for them to drive up to Ferry Road, and along to the crossroads that led down towards Bonnington, on the right.
'I've seen better, I've seen worse,' Mcllhenney murmured as he looked up at the shabby frontage of the tenement. 'You sure this girl will be in?'
'There's more chance other being in than ofJorge. Mind you, we'l check his place just in case.' Mario led the way upstairs to the Rosewell apartment; without bothering to knock, he used his skeleton key to slip the lock once more. Nobody was in and nothing was different; the 276 apartment had not been touched, nor as far as he could see entered since his last visit.
They stepped back on to the landing, closing the door once more, and across to Ivy's flat. McGuire rang the doorbell, then leaned down and shouted through the letterbox. 'Ivy! Miss Baldwin! Open up, it's the police.' He straightened up and waited for the sound of her coming to open the door, smiling as he imagined her face, in the knowledge that they knew her real name.
But there was no sound of Ivy; only a thin wavering cry, the tired wail of a child, rising to a scream of panic or even pain. He thumped the door this time, but still she did not come. Rums' screams grew louder.
'Stand back,' said Mcl henney, 'I was always better at this than you, even when I was a fat bastard.' He jumped high, kicking out with the heel of his right foot, striking just below the lock, which gave at once under his violence. In a shower of splinters, the door swung open.
McGuire reached the living room first, but stopped at its entrance, fil ing it with his bulk. His col eague eased him out of the way and moved ahead.
Ivy was lying naked on the carpeted floor, in the middle of the room.
Her tiny body was covered in contusions, and her face seemed to be one single bruise; her left eye was closed, and her nose had been broken.
Great angry welts stood up round her throat.
'Strangled, the poor wee thing,' Mcllhenney sighed. 'Beaten half to death, then strangled.' He turned to look at his friend, and saw him stil in the doorway, tears streaming down his face.
'Too much, Neil,' he moaned. 'It's just too much. When I find this man, I'm going to kil him, nice and slow.'
'That's why we have to find him together, pal; so as you don't do that very thing.' The inspector reached for his phone. 'Better call it in; we can't deal with this one on our own.'
'Phone Haggerty,' said McGuire, pul ing himself together with an effort. 'Not Pringle or Jay; I don't trust either of them. Tell him where we are, and what we've found. Let him decide who deals with it.' He turned and moved towards the bedroom, where Rufus screamed on. 'But tel him to get the childcare people here, pronto.'
Bob Skinner had sensed the tension building in his wife from the moment she had wakened. In a sense he welcomed it; she had been entirely too cool for his liking when she had viewed her parents' bodies, too composed by far, but this was the day when the tough stuff would begin again. She had her meeting with her lawyer, and then the funeral run-through. lan and Babs Walker were good people, to think of easing things for her with their supper invitation, but he knew that she would not relax again… any more than he would… until she had laid Leo and Susannah to rest.
He had that burden on his shoulders too, and more besides. He had told her nothing of Doherty's discoveries, and of the awful place to which they led. He did not know if he ever would, for al of his experience as well as his instinct for self-preservation told him that the secrets buried there had to be left undisturbed. Too much time had passed for any good to be served by the truth, whatever it was, being uncovered.
He knew that, and he only hoped that he had been able to bring Joe Doherty to agree with him. Whoever was behind the deaths of Leo and the others was not kidding, not at al, and besides, similar things had happened in his own country. He dreaded to think what would happen if his own story, and that of his friend Adam Arrow, ever found their way into the public domain. Few things ever worried Bob Skinner, but that was one of them.
He was relieved when Sarah told him, over breakfast, that she planned to spend the morning indulging in retail therapy, and asked him to join her; in fact, he jumped at her suggestion.