Haven't been at Bloonsbury's house since he had a bachelor poker party two weeks after Beattie moved out. Really it was a poker/fuck movie/drugs/alcohol/whore party. The standard police fare. Filled the house up with a bunch of us, raided the warehouse and got what he could, dragged in a couple of tarts that they'd picked up specially the night before. You know the deaclass="underline" 'come round and shag the lot of us tomorrow night or you're nicked.' Happens all the time. Anyway, sad to say, Detective Sergeant Hutton was in the midst of it all. Steaming out of my face, losing a shit load of cash at the cards, standing in the queue for the women. Jesus knows what number I was in line. Not a proud moment in my career. Some things are best forgotten.
Pull up outside the house, get out of the car into the cold. Up the path, the tangled mass of vegetation that is the garden still evident despite the snow. Wonder what state of decay the house is going to be in.
The place is quiet. Dead. No lights, no sound.
'He's either out, or he's collapsed on the floor,' says Taylor as he rings the bell.
'Probably out somewhere collapsed on the floor,' I say. Pull my coat closer around me; makes no difference. It's bloody freezing.
He rings the bell again and we stand and wait. In vain. Tries the door handle. Locked.
'You ready to put the door in again?' he says.
'You're kidding?'
'Come on, Sergeant, we're not standing out here all night waiting for the guy to wake up or come home.'
'But he could have nothing to do with it. He might just be a drunken pish head. How's it going to look if we go breaking into his house and nothing comes out of it?'
He looks at me — the Chief Inspector look.
'Sergeant, break the fucking door down. I'll take the responsibility. Just do it. If someone is taking them all out, Bloonsbury could be lying in there dead, anyway.'
Let out a long breath. Bloody hell, here goes. Glad I've got my boots on.
Foot up, kick hard at the lock with the soul of my boot. The door gives slightly, while I lose my balance, slip and fall on my backside. Into a soft bed of snow. Taylor ignores me, puts his shoulder to the weakened door and pushes it open. Looks back.
'Come on, Sergeant, off your arse,' he says, and walks into the house. Puts on the hall light, looks up the stairs.
'Jonah!'
I dig myself out the snow, brush it off best I can, walk into the house.
'Jonah!' he shouts again.
Dead quiet.
'Right, up the stairs, Sergeant, I'll do down here.'
Taylor walks off into the sitting room — the scene of a vast majority of the poker party — while I head up to the bedrooms; scene for another part of the poker party. Two bedrooms and a bathroom at the end is all there is up here, if I remember correctly.
Have a vaguely embarrassed feeling, walking into the house of someone who may well be perfectly innocent. Half expect to find him in bed with someone from the station, and I'm going to feel like an idiot.
To the top of the stairs, stop and listen. Nothing.
'Jonah, you there?'
No reply. Feels a bit creepy now that I'm here, even with the lights on. Vaguely unpleasant smell in the air. Wonder if it's death. Don't think so. Assume that anywhere Bloonsbury lives is going to smell vaguely unpleasant.
Walk along the top landing, floorboards creak beneath my feet. Past the regulation police photo — the young Jonah with the Secretary of State for Scotland of the day. Ian Lang by the looks of things. His glory days were that long ago.
Push open the door to the front bedroom.
'Jonah?'
Turn on the light. The place is a shit tip. The sort of state your room is in when you're twelve and your mother's forgotten to tell you to clean it up for the last year. The man lives like a pig. Hate to think what sort of lifeforms Taylor's going to come across in the kitchen.
Walk into the room, start poking around his things. Clothes everywhere, blankets tossed off the side of the bed. Sheets and pillows stained. Wonder if he's changed them since the whores were here along with all the guys from the station. By the looks of things, not.
Think I feel it first, rather than hear it. A noise; a whisper of sound. Niggling. Feel it in the shiver down my back. Drop the jacket, the pockets of which I've been looking through. Stand still. Silent. Taylor maybe.
It comes again. A murmur of noise. The next bedroom. A strange sound. Not like a man or woman's voice, but still human. A whimper.
Wish I had a gun again. Ought to start carrying these things around, but still the noise is not threatening. Out into the hall, and now I can hear it more clearly. Feel the pain of it. Hairs rise on the back of my neck.
A noise from downstairs. Taylor stumbling into something, a low curse; calls out for Bloonsbury again.
Stand outside the other bedroom. A second's hesitation. Wonder. Push the door open, no idea what I'm going to find. Half expecting to see a dog whimpering in the corner.
Light on.
Jesus Christ. The smell hits me as much as the sight of what is in front of me; get that instant shock like needles of water under a freezing shower.
Ian Healy, manacled to the wall. Unshaven, cheeks drawn, barely recognisable from the man I spoke to a week ago. He is naked, his arms attached to the wall above him, and from these he hangs limply. His feet can touch the floor, but they offer no support. And around his feet are several days worth of his own faeces and urine and vomit.
Take a step back, try to ignore the smell. He squints from the light, and then looks at me. Acknowledgement flickers across his face, a word tumbles silently from his lips.
'Boss!' I shout, 'think you'd better get up here.'
44
Can hear Taylor labouring up the stairs. I'm about to plough my way through the human detritus on the floor to let Healy down, when I decide to wait for the boss. He might look like a pathetic shambles of a human being, but he's still a killer. Ann Keller at least, although the truth of the second and third murders is beginning to kick in. Taylor arrives, stands at my shoulder.
'Fuck,' he says to my back.
Finally, after a week and a half of speculation and haphazard supposition, we have something concrete. A piece of living evidence up on the wall which is all the proof we need of Jonah Bloonsbury's involvement in the murders of three other officers. Fuck just about hits the nail on the head.
Taylor comes into the room, walks up to Healy. The smell hits him.
'Jesus,' he says. 'This is medieval for God's sake. You got your keys?'
'Remember what this guy did to Ann Keller.'
'We don't know he did anything to anyone,' he says.
'Come on. Maybe the rest was a set up, but how did Bloonsbury get on to him in the first place? This guy killed Ann Keller. Think about what he did to her before you go letting him down.'
He looks at Healy who stares blankly back. At a guess I'd say he has no idea what we've just been talking about. Dead eyes, mouth attempting to smile.
'How long have you been here?' says Taylor.
Nothing.
'Healy, how long?'
A whispered word passes his lips, drops out into the room, unintelligible.
'What was that?' says Taylor. Voice still harsh. No time for naked psychopaths on walls.
Healy's lips move again, and this time we can hear it. The chill, croaking voice.
'Jo,' he says. 'Tell Jo.'
*
The threads of a story come from time to time together and make a picture in the web.
Another one of Charlotte's favourites. Very appropriate.
Half an hour later and we're back on the road. Called Ramsey and told him to get a few of the lads round. Impressed the delicacy of it all upon him. No one's going to like the truth of this. Got him to start the search for Bloonsbury and to have the guy brought in. Who knows what gutter he'll be lying in at the moment? Also told him that we'd take care of telling Miller, which is where we're heading right now. Down to Helensburgh, back the way we just came. Stopped for petrol and provisions in case we get stuck in the snow, and on our way.