Men of London 04 - Feat of Clay (11 page)

She peered at him suspiciously. “Yeah? So are
you going home to him now?”

Tate shook his head. “No, I’m at my own place
at the moment.”

Tate would maybe call Clay in the morning.
Perhaps it would lead to more frantic make-up sex. He supposed
there was an upside to being a prima donna.

Lily stared at him from eyes that said she
still wasn’t sure about him. Tate chewed his gum, slid back down to
sit on his arse and watched the kids across the quadrant and
waited. Finally she sniffed and sat down beside him.

“When I first saw you painting here, I
thought you were a copper. You had that air, you know? You can
always tell a man in blue.” She sniffed and then coughed again, her
face twisting in pain. “I wondered what a man in the force would be
doing down here, painting with a bunch of rebel kids. Didn’t seem
the sort of thing a policeman would do. Now I’ve met you, I
still
think you’re one of them. Am I
right?”

Tate glanced at her. “I was a policeman, yes.
Then something happened to me and I wasn’t. Short story.”

Lily gave a hoarse laugh. “Did you do the
dirty on someone, take a bribe? Maybe shot the wrong person in a
beat down?”

Tate frowned. “You’ve been watching too much
telly, you have. Those phrases are straight off U S television
shows.”

Lily flushed. “So what if they are? I
sometimes sit outside the pub and watch the shows through the
window if they’re open. I like
Law and
Order
.”

Tate grinned. He rather liked this young
lady.

She cocked her head. “So what happened to you
that you left the force then?”

Tate stared across at the youths on the other
side. “I got… hurt,” he murmured. “So I was forced to leave.”

“You get shot or something?” Lily asked
curiously.

Tate nodded. “Yes.” He wasn’t rehashing his
whole sorry story to someone as young as Lily.

She scowled. “You don’t like talking about
it, I gather. Okay, I know how that is. I don’t like talking about
me either.” Her voice faltered. “Not much to say, really.” She
sounded sad and Tate looked at her.

“Why are you here, on the streets?” Tate
asked quietly. “Haven’t you got somewhere else you can go? Can I
call someone to come and fetch you?”

Her eyes shadowed and her lips tightened.
“No. I don’t have anyone. I like it on the streets.” Her voice was
brave but the expression on her face was anything but.

Tate tried again. “I know this halfway house
that takes on kids like you.” He had no idea whether Castaways
could take on a teenage runaway but if not, he knew other people he
could contact. “I could see whether they could offer you somewhere
to stay.” A stray thought of Jax with his blue eyes and angelic
visage flashed into his head. Despite the fact Tate didn’t know Jax
that well, he’d no doubt the young man would extend his compassion
and help to someone like Lily.

“I said I’m fine. I don’t need anyone. Will
you stop fucking meddling?” Lily spat as she leapt to her feet. She
looked ready to run and Tate didn’t want that.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll stop fucking meddling.
I just wanted to help.” Tate raised his hands in a gesture of
surrender. His heart ached for the teenager, and her stubbornness
at insisting she needed no one when she so clearly did.

She scrutinised him with a sneer. “If you
really want to help me, you can buy me something to eat. I like
hamburgers. There’s a place down the road that does good ones.
Maybe bring me a Coke or something too.”

Tate narrowed his eyes. It sounded like she
wanted to get rid of him. His instincts told him something was
wrong. He didn’t remember seeing a burger place anywhere close by.
It was all warehouses and old factories. He said as much and Lily
rolled her eyes.

“There’s a mobile burger van that gets here
around this time every night, just down the street. I’ve seen
it.”

Tate was unconvinced. “Why not come with me?”
he suggested. “You can see what you want.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I’m not going
anywhere. You want to help me, you bring me food.”

Tate sighed. He still had misgivings but he
couldn’t hound the kid. “Fine, I’ll go get you something and bring
it back.” He looked around. “It’s getting dark. Are you going to
stay here or is there somewhere else you want me to bring your
dinner back to—somewhere warmer?” And safer, he thought.

Lily snorted. “Here’s just fine. This is
my
place. I’ll be waiting here.”

Tate supposed that if he could help her with
food, at least that was something. He thrust his hands into his
jacket pockets and started walking away. “I’ll get you some food.
Be back in a bit.”

“‘Kay. Don’t be long. I’m really hungry.”
Lily’s vice faltered and Tate looked back at her.

She stood there, shooting him a defiant look.
“What? Go already.”

It took Tate over an hour to find a burger
place much further down the road, order some food and then get back
to the abandoned baths. Contrary to what he’d been told, there was
no mobile takeaway in the area. Or perhaps there had been one but
it had already left for the evening.

It was dark when he got back, the area where
he’d been painting deserted. The kids painting the huge plant on
the wall were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Lily.

Tate called out. “Lily? It’s Tate. I have
your food. Where are you?”

There was no reply, only the faint whistle of
the wind as it blew across the deserted quadrant. He took out his
mobile phone and used its flashlight app as a torch. There were no
signs of life. Icicles trailed down his spine as his misgivings
deepened. Something was wrong. As he approached a secluded area
near to where he and Lily had sat, Tate smelt it.
Blood.
He was familiar with its pungent scent, both his
own and that of other people. As he rounded a corner of one of the
buildings in search of the young girl, his nostrils flared. The
rich tang of the substance flooded his senses as aimed his phone at
a motionless bundle lying in a heap of blankets against a wall.

“Lily?” he said quietly as he approached. As
he got closer, he saw it
was
her—pale face,
slack mouth, half-closed eyes, and he knew without any doubt that
she was dead. He’d seen that look before, that dull, vacant
expression that heralded death.

He tried to quell the panic in his belly, the
rising sickness in his throat. Putting the now cold food on the
ground and crouching down, he pulled back the red sodden blanket
and gagged. Tate thought he was hardened to death, having seen
junkies and gang members dead when he was undercover, but he’d
never seen a young girl drenched in her own fluids, blood spread
around like a fallen can of red paint. Her sweatpants had been
removed and were folded neatly by her feet, only her grey and
grubby daisy-printed panties covering her modestly.

His police training allowed him to
dispassionately observe what looked like a fisherman’s filleting
knife lying next to her outstretched hand, covered in blood. From
what he could see, she’d cut her femoral artery, a ragged wound
marking her left thigh. Tate’s first thought was that death would
have been quick for Lily, although the action of cutting herself
must have hurt like sin, not to mention the psychological trauma of
performing such a determined act on oneself. In her other hand she
clutched her pendant tightly. A tattered piece of paper peeped out
from underneath the sweatpants.

Tate reached out a hand and unfolded it. The
writing was scrawled, untidy and as he read it, his eyes prickled
and his throat closed up.

Hey there Graffiti
Man

I didn’t think you’d come
back. They normally don’t. But if you do see this, then I’m sorry
if you’re the one to find me. You said you were a policeman in a
past life so I guess this kind of thing is something you’re used
to. I like it in this spot so I needed you gone so I could do what
I had to do. It’s just the way it is. Don’t feel sorry for us. I
think we’re going someplace better, some place safer.

Keep painting, you’re
actually pretty good.

Lily

“Oh, Lily,” he whispered brokenly into the
silent darkness. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

Tenderly he leaned over and brushed a strand
of greasy hair from her forehead before standing up and pulling out
his mobile phone. With instructions given to the emergency
services, who assured him they’d be there in ten minutes, Tate sat
down next to Lily’s cold body and let hot tears fall.

Clay was half
asleep when the call came in. Groggily, he reached for his phone
and became more alert when he saw who the caller was. His blood
froze. Three in the morning was never a good time for a phone
call.

“Tate? Is everything okay?” He sat up and
swung his legs out of the bed. He was ready to move at a moment’s
notice. There was a silence. “Tate? You’re scaring the shit out of
me. Where are you?”

Finally there was a soft whisper. “I’m at the
police station in Kentish Town. I’m okay. It’s not me.”

Clay was out of bed already, grabbing clothes
and pinning the phone under his ear as he tried to get dressed.
“Who is it? Is it Rick?”

Tate’s voice echoed down the phone. “No, he’s
fine. It’s—” His voice broke. “She was just a kid, Clay. And she’s
dead. I should never have left her. I knew something was off.” A
sob caused Clay’s stomach to tighten and his throat to close in
fear. Tate never cried. Perhaps when he was in the throes of one of
his nightmares, but he’d never shed a tear during his waking hours
since Armerian had gotten hold of him.

Clay cursed as he hopped around trying to get
his pants on and finally succeeded. He shrugged his arms into an
open shirt and slid his feet into loafers. “I’m coming down to
fetch you. Hold on there, love. I’ll be there soon.”

There was another silence then Clay heard a
soft shuddering exhaled sigh. That sound scared him more than
anything. It sounded as if Tate was simply letting go. It was the
sound of defeat, and that was something Clay wasn’t going to let
happen to the man he loved.

“Tate, I’m out the door now.” He left the
house and moved swiftly to his parked car. “I’ll be there soon.
Hold on for me, okay?”

When Tate spoke again, his plea broke Clay’s
heart. He’d never tried to start his car so fast in all his life.
His man sounded so damned lost.

“I need you. Please hurry.” The line went
dead.

Clay thought he’d broken the land speed
record by the time he reached the police station and struggled to
find somewhere to plant his car. Growling at the lack of parking,
he eventually parked on a yellow line and decided any traffic
warden giving him a ticket would get a long fuck-you letter if they
ticketed him.

He tore into the police station as if all the
demons in
Supernatural
were on his tail.
The duty officer behind the desk stared at him in surprise as Clay
leaned over the desk and barked out, “My partner is here. Tate
Williams. Where is he?”

The duty officer blinked. “Sir, I have no
idea where he might be I’ve just got on shift. What was he admitted
for?”

“I haven’t got a fucking clue,” Clay said,
panic overriding good manners. “He just called me and told me to
come down here. It was something about a young girl dying?”

The officer’s face still looked puzzled. “Let
me find out for you. Hold on.”

He reappeared about five minutes later as
Clay tapped his fingers impatiently on the counter. “He’s in one of
the interrogation rooms, sir, with Sergeant Fisher. He’s being
questioned.”

“Questioned? What the hell for? Has he got a
lawyer?” Clay snarled. If it was the same Fisher he knew of, the
man had been one of Tate’s partners in the past. He was a big,
burly, bearded man with a good heart.

The duty officer rolled his eyes. “Tate
doesn’t need a lawyer. As far as I know he’s not accused of
anything. He was simply the witness who found the body.”

A sliver of cold ran down Clay’s spine. “He
found a kid’s body?” Inside he raged at the unfairness of it
all.

Christ, how much more does
he have to go through? Wasn’t having him tortured and shot and his
mind fucked up enough for you, God? Now you have to throw a dead
kid at him too? Well, fuck you.

“Please take me to him.” Clay demanded.

“He’s being moved to the waiting room and you
can see him there.” The duty officer smiled sympathetically at
Clay. “We all know Tate here. He’s been through hell in the past
and we didn’t want to cause him any more trouble. He’s in a bit of
a mess at the moment though. I think he’ll be glad to see a
friendly face.”

Feeling rather a heel at his high-brow
attitude, Clay tried to smile. “Thank you. I’m sorry if I seem a
little agitated, but you know…” He shrugged and took a deep breath.
“He’s special to me.” He had no idea whether his and Tate’s
relationship was common knowledge yet, so he thought it best to
play it quiet. Tate had enough on his plate.

The policeman grinned. “No need to be
circumspect, Mister Mortimer. We know you two are
together
-together. Tate’s nephew Rick is a frequent
visitor here.”

“Ah. I see.” Clay wasn’t sure he liked the
fact that Rick had been the Gay Town Crier about his and Tate’s
relationship but the damage was done. “Thanks.” He looked around.
“Can I see him now then?”

The other man nodded. “Sure. Follow me.”

His portly frame led the way to a colourless,
soulless room in which slumped a man who had definitely seen better
days. Tate’s face was drawn and pale, his eyes dark circles in his
face. He was wearing unfamiliar clothing—an old Iron Maiden tee
shirt and what looked like a ratty pair of long grey joggers. He
sat looking down at his hands twisting around and around in some
frenzied parody of hand washing. Clay’s heart ached to see him
looking so vulnerable and beaten.