III
Both of the drivers involved in the crash stood sullenly on the steep motorway grass verge, arms crossed, twenty feet apart, ignoring each other while the police and firemen and ambulance men chatted around the fused cars. The whole west carriageway was shut down, a cordon farther back keeping the few midnight motorists waiting until all the debris could be safely picked off the road.
The driver of the Mini Metro said it was an unfortunate mistake; according to the Ford Anglia it was an act of vicious stupidity. The two cars moving along the motorway at two thirty a.m. had made contact in the middle lane after the Metro, realizing that he was about to miss the off-ramp for his exit, slid across from the inside lane without looking or indicating. The cars had somehow locked flanks and waltzed across all three carriageways, failing to turn over because they were stuck together.
When the police arrived the men were jammed in their cars, side by side, screaming abuse at each other. They didn’t shut up until the firemen threatened to piss off and leave them like that. Once they’d been cut out and the ambulance service had the chance to examine them, neither man was found to have a bruise or a mark on him. Both cars were write-offs.
It was a nice call to be on. There were no fights to break up, no one had died, and the emergency service lingered on the empty carriageway in a moment of unexpected bonhomie, like a town fair held on a frozen river.
Half an hour ago Billy had gone to find a phone box to ask the office to send the photographer out. Frankie Miles had turned up with a ton weight of photographic equipment in a shoulder bag and then realized he didn’t have a News chitty for the return taxi ride. He couldn’t walk far with the heavy bag and wouldn’t find a roving black cab at this time of night without walking to a rank anyway. Billy and Paddy offered to run him back, so now he and Billy were standing by the car, smoking silently as they rested their bums on the warm bonnet and waited for her.
Paddy was finishing up her notes, checking the junction number on the overhead sign, when she noticed the funny officer from Thillingly’s drowning holding forth to a crowd of uniformed officers. Remembering Dub, she walked over and joined them, momentarily distracting his audience and causing him to mistime an important line. She held up her hands and waited for him to finish his story.
“So I go, ‘That woman’s had more miscarriages than the Argentine judiciary.’”
The men laughed dutifully and drifted off.
“Thanks very much; you just ruined my story.”
“I didn’t know you were in full flow. I wanted to ask you something. The river death the other night, is it definitely murder?”
“Well, yeah, that’s how they’re dealing with it.”
“Was there some physical evidence, then? Was the torn cheek a wound from something?”
“Nah, they found a bit of stick in there from the river. But the guy was functioning fine on the actual day, his wife said. He left a note in his car, didn’t say why really, just blah blah can’t go on.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“A Golf GTI, top spec.” He nodded approvingly. “Nice.”
“Right, right.” Paddy glanced down the road. “Ever heard of a thug called Lafferty?”
“Bobby Lafferty?”
She wasn’t sure of his first name but repeated Sullivan’s description: “Big guy? Broad shoulders, bald head?”
“Aye. I arrested him for drunk driving a few years ago. He was so pissed he was in the backseat looking for the steering wheel.”
She laughed loud, pleasing him enough to prompt another story.
“I was lucky he was too pissed to fight me. He bit someone on the eye, ye know. Blinded the guy. He’ll do anyone, his relatives, his school pals, anyone.”
Paddy watched him, an obsequious smile on her face, privately observing. Lafferty was a known criminal and Vhari Burnett was a prosecutor. There had to be a link between them. She might have been prosecuting him for something, something that would cause him to attack her.
“He kicked his dog to death. His own dog. Can you imagine the mentality of the man? Threw it out the window, from twenty up.” His eyes were shining and if she blocked out the words he could be talking about a great sportsman or a war hero.
“Anything recent? Has he been charged with anything?”
“Nothing I’ve heard of. Doesn’t mean anything, though. They’re always up to something. Animals, these people, animals.” He nodded at her to concur but she was thinking about Lafferty and Thillingly and Burnett and she missed her cue by a half beat.
“Aye,” she said. “Aye, right enough.”
He looked wary. “You don’t know Lafferty, do you?”
“Like you, I also believe violent people to be animals.” The grammar was all wrong. She was talking like a bad robot. She giggled, looking away down the black glistening road to the three-car police cordon. “Oh, dear. Have you ever done continuous night shift for months on end?”
He frowned. “We do rotation shifts.”
“Well, this is my fourth consecutive month. If I seem a bit odd or my timing’s off… it’s not because… I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Yes.” She could already see him forming a story about the journalist who couldn’t speak. “You seem to be aware of English yet not familiar with it. Is this your first time in our country?”
She laughed so hard her head reeled on her neck. “Okay.” She calmed herself down. “Right, let’s give up on conversation and just get to the important bits. Does Lafferty work alone?”
A policeman by the squad car twenty feet away called across to them.
“Nah, he’s a hired hand.” He looked over her shoulder to the squad car and saw that he was being shouted back. “I need to go.”
She meant to grab his arm and stop him slipping past but she misjudged the distance and took hold of his first two fingers, squeezed to check if she was indeed holding his hand.
They were standing shoulder to shoulder, like flamenco dancers. He smiled down at her, not displeased at the intimacy. Opening her fist and releasing his fingers, she considered acting as if the flirty gesture was deliberate. He was attractive and funny, he was tall and he wasn’t Sean, all good things, but she imagined touching him, kissing him and being kissed, and nothing stirred anywhere. All she felt was a little bit hungry. He was definitely funny, though; she should tell him about the Comedy Club and invite him to meet Dub McKenzie.
“My friend-” She hesitated, wondering if it was a good idea to invite him out after touching his hand, and realized that she sounded as if she was addressing him as “friend.” “Um, my friend’s a comedian. He’s doing a stand-up gig tomorrow night at the comedy club in Blackfriar’s. You should come and meet him.”
Surprised, he raised his eyebrows, smiling as though he had just seen her tits. “Okay. Maybe see you there.”
“I’m just saying. Comedy’s a good thing. I’m not asking ye out on a date.”
“’Course not.” His glance flickered down to her neck and he licked his bottom lip, leaving a glistening trail that glinted silver in the dark. “’Course not. Mibbi see you there, then.”
There was no saving the situation. He smiled at her, eyes narrowed so that she couldn’t see what was in them. He swaggered back to his colleagues who were watching him, curious about wee Paddy Meehan grabbing his hand.
The cold white motorway lights glinted at her from his left hand and it took her a moment to realize that it was a ring. The joker was married.
FOURTEEN. GEORGE BURNS
I
Kate was surprised that the Mini held out as well as it did. The tank was half-full when she left Bernie’s garage but the needle kept slipping down toward empty and she thought the tank was leaking. She drove slowly, far more slowly than she had in the BMW, missing the suspension of the big German car.