Should probably have gone home first for a shower and a change of clothes, but the last faint wisps of adrenaline had gone, leaving nothing but the inevitable crash into unconsciousness. And if I was going to fall asleep for eighteen hours, I’d much rather do it here.
In case she woke up.
Eyelids were getting almost as heavy as my head.
A jaw-cracking yawn.
I let my head fall back. Up above, the ceiling tiles made a moonscape of tiny pocks and craters. Nearly died twice today, something of a record, even for me.
Tomorrow: going to have a long lie-in, nice big breakfast — sod salted porridge and decaf tea, it was time for a proper fry-up at that greasy spoon down Tollbooth Row — then take the wee man for a hobble in Kings Park. Throw some bread at the...
Oh bugger.
I sat up and fumbled Alice’s phone from my pocket. Unlocked it. Then went searching for that business card. Dialled the number.
A mumbled voice. ‘Hello?’ The sound of lips smacking on sleep-sticky breath. ‘I mean, J-and-F Freelance Consultants, how can—’
‘Joseph, I know it’s late, but I need your help.’
Because sometimes you really did need the assistance of two very capable gentlemen with a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to other people’s physical wellbeing.
— time, gentlemen, please —
50
‘Well?’
I let the blind fall back. ‘All gone.’
The private room was festooned with Mylar balloons, some at full bobbing strength, others at half-mast, all covered in slogans like ‘GET WELL SOON!’, ‘YOU’RE A STAR!’, and for some bizarre reason, ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’
‘Three days.’ Sitting in the visitor’s chair, Shifty curled his lip. ‘You’d think catching two massive serial killers would hold their attention for at least a week. Four dead wee boys and... how many victims for Gordon Smith?’
‘No way of knowing.’ Even if Alice and Franklin were right about Smith keeping all his homemade torture porn on his phone, it got wheeched out into the North Sea — along with the man himself, Leah’s body, and Helen’s house. ‘At least thirty-six, if you count the panto cast and crew that went missing from productions he worked on, plus the basement Polaroids. And we’ve only got IDs for about a dozen of those.’
Shifty scratched at the wadding taped to the back of his head. ‘Bloody media.’
‘Didn’t you hear? Train crash at Waverley Station this morning: thirteen dead, eighty-seven injured. Suspected terrorism.’
A grimace. ‘Fair enough. But they could—’
My new phone blared out its anonymous ringtone. ‘Hold that thought.’ I pulled it out and checked the screen. Not a number I recognised. Pressed the button anyway. ‘Hello?’
‘ASH, YOU UTTER BASTARD!’ For some strange reason, Jennifer Prentice sounded upset. Poor thing. ‘WHAT THE BUGGERING HELL DID YOU DO?’
‘Me? Why do you think I did anything?’
‘Because I’ve had four parking tickets since Wednesday, two on-the-spot fines, AND MY BLOODY BOSS JUST SACKED ME FROM THE BLOODY PAPER!’
‘Oh dear, that does sound terrible.’ Doing my best not to grin. ‘Bye, Jennifer.’ I hung up.
Shifty beamed back at me. ‘She like her present?’
‘Loving it.’ Amazing what could be achieved if you had dirt on the right kind of people.
The room’s door opened and a nurse nodded at us, dressed in pale-green scrubs and white oversized trainers, hair pulled up in a bun, a piercing in each of his nostrils. ‘Did anyone order a forensic psychologist?’
Shifty’s eyebrows went up. ‘With extra cheese?’
The nurse ducked out again, then reappeared wheeling Alice into the room. ‘Ta-daaa...’
She’d put on the baggy blue tracksuit I’d bought her at Abdel’s Bargain Warehouse — roomy enough to fit over the cast on her left leg and the one on her right arm — with ‘UNICORNICOPIA’ picked out in pink sequins across the chest.
One look, and Shifty burst out laughing.
‘What?’ Her voice slightly muzzy. They’d scaled back on the bandages, but most of her face was stained navy and yellow. No white at all in her left eye, only red. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Without meaning to come off as a complete gay stereotype: Girlfriend, you should not go out dressed like that.’
‘Ash?’
‘You do look a teeny bit like a Smurf with jaundice.’
She stared down at herself. ‘Oh, Ash!’
‘It fits OK? That’s all that matters.’ I took hold of the wheelchair’s handles.
The nurse flipped off the brake. ‘Once round the block, then I want her back in bed, understand?’
‘Yeah, we’ll see how we go.’
‘So Dorothy says, “Don’t look at me, I’m vegetarian: I had the falafel for lunch,” and she’s in getting her hip resurfaced because apparently they didn’t put it in properly the first time, which isn’t exactly great, is it, you come in here you think they know what they’re doing, but she’d had the falafel which meant—’
An electronic voice crackled out in the lift. ‘GROUND FLOOR. DOORS OPENING.’
‘—had to be someone else who’d nabbed the packet of Peperami off Rosemary’s bedside cabinet and it can’t have been Jeanette, because they took her dentures out before they did her colonoscopy and lost them.’
Shifty pulled a face over Alice’s head, rolling his eyes and sticking his tongue out.
I wheeled her out into the hospital’s reception area — a wide expanse of brown tiles with steel benches painted in primary colours to match the various wards and lines set into the floor.
‘That’s when I had my revelation, you see... Ash? Are you listening?’
There — over in the pink section with ‘MATERNITY’ in big white letters on the wall behind her. It was thingy, the pregnant almost-qualified forensic anthropologist from Clachmara. The one who’d spotted the bones sticking out of the crumbling headland. Which meant, technically, a lot of this was all her fault.
She must’ve sensed me staring, because she looked up from whatever newspaper she was reading and waved.
Sod.
Suppose I should really go say hello.
‘Stay here a minute, OK?’ I abandoned the wheelchair and limped over there.
She had her kid with her, but he was hunched over a colouring-in book, probably making a dog’s arse of another paleontologically inaccurate rendering.
She smiled and levered herself out of the metal seat, one hand cupping the underside of her bulge. ‘Mr Henderson.’ Face flushed, neck too — the skin bright pink as it disappeared into her stripy top. ‘What are you doing here? Are you here to see me?’
‘No, it’s...’ Pointing back towards Alice and Shifty.
‘Oh, right. Yes.’ Sounding disappointed. ‘Anyway, I wanted to say, thank you. DI Malcolmson said it was your idea to get me involved in that post mortem? Of the remains you found buried in Gordon Smith’s garden?’ She pulled a quick frog face and shrugged, eyes getting wider with every word: ‘Best — day — at — work — ever. We even got an ID! And Professor Twining was so impressed he offered me a job on the spot. Well, soon as I evict this teeny monster.’ Patting her swollen stomach. ‘I can even go back and finish my degree part-time.’
‘Good. I’m glad.’
Her smile slipped. ‘Of course, the council came round the next day and condemned my house, so Alfie and me will be homeless in two weeks, but there you go. At least I got to tell them to shove their sixteen-grand demolition-and-recycling fee up their landfill site. I only rent the thing, not own it.’