Pariah (13 page)

Nurse Lynley stops in front of them. Her eyes slide to Rachel, then back to Doyle.

‘This is—’

‘My wife, yes.’

The nurse nods at this final and undeniable confirmation of the mistaken identity. ‘Mr Doyle, I’m so sorry. We try to be as careful as we can about identifying victims. It’s
just that—’

‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘You’re not to blame. I don’t plan to file a complaint or sue the hospital or anything.’

In gratitude, she flashes the briefest of smiles. ‘Mr Doyle, would I be right in thinking that you’re a detective?’

Doyle stares back into her green eyes, looking for a hint of mysticism that helped her divine that particular piece of information.

‘Yes, I am. How did you . . .’

‘There was something else on the victim. It fell from her clothing when she was brought in. An orderly left it at the reception desk.’

Nurse Lynley dips into a capacious pocket on her uniform. Doyle knows what her hand will contain even before it’s withdrawn.

A white envelope. The words ‘Detective Doyle’ on its face.

Doyle takes the offering, thanks the nurse. He feels the familiar turmoil in his stomach.

She says, ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here, and maybe you’d prefer not to tell me. Maybe you’d prefer not to talk about this to anybody. But there’s a
woman back there who is now a murder victim. The thing you need to know is—’

‘The hospital has to make a police report, I know. And you’ll have to mention my connection with all this. I understand.’

She shows another hint of a smile, grateful to him for not making this difficult for her.

‘I’m glad you’ve found your wife. Goodbye, Detective.’

She turns then, and goes briskly back to her business. Doyle gazes down at the envelope, knowing that he can’t delay in opening it.

‘What is it?’ Rachel asks.

‘The son of a bitch has been sending me anonymous messages. This is his latest. His chance to gloat.’

Doyle rips open the envelope and unfolds the note it contains.

‘What’s it say?’

‘Crap you don’t need to hear.’ He folds the note over, then tucks it and the envelope into his pocket. ‘Let’s go.’

His mind is made up now. All that remains is to figure out how to break it to Rachel.

He worries about his plans.

It seems to him that he plans things meticulously, knows exactly what he wants to do, but when it comes to implementing them he just gets, well, carried away. Like he starts off as the driver
and suddenly finds himself in the passenger seat.

He hadn’t set out with any intention of killing the girl.

His objective was just to rough her up a little. Well, a lot, actually. Enough to keep her in the hospital for a while. Get her into the ICU, drips in her arm, monitors on her brain activity
– all that shit. Long enough to get Doyle in there. Give him a little scare.

He’d done his research. The hooker was roughly the right height and shape, her hair was long and dark, and she wasn’t too skanky-looking as whores go. Her face was nowhere near as
attractive as the one on Doyle’s wife, but that wasn’t so important. When he was done with her, the face was the last place people would be looking for recognizable features.

So he called her up. Told her he’d traveled all the way from Chicago for a business meeting and wanted to relax a little before heading back to the Windy City. Put her at ease by telling
her to meet him at his nice hotel on Seventh Avenue.

There were many things he didn’t tell her, of course.

He didn’t tell her she would never make it to his hotel. Didn’t tell her that she wouldn’t even make it out of her own apartment building. Didn’t tell her that his call
was just a ruse to get her out of the apartment without her feeling that, at that very moment, she was about to be attacked.

He was waiting for her in the hallway. It was black out there because he’d removed the light bulb. He waited patiently until he heard her take the locks off. Waited until the door opened
and a dirty yellow light leaked out and she stepped into the gloom and turned to lock up.

And then he pounced.

He rammed into her back, driving her through the door and into the apartment. She yelped, then whirled to face him. He saw first the shock and then the fear. He’d expected that reaction.
He believed he cut an imposing, formidable figure. Although the ski mask and the baseball bat may have added to the effect.

He expected also that she’d run. Maybe even put up a fight. This was a woman of the streets, after all. She would have learned something about how to handle herself.

So he didn’t wait. Didn’t try to reason with her. He just let the baseball bat do the talking. Let it sing through the air on its way to connecting with her ribcage with such force
that he heard bones crack. Let it whistle a little before bouncing off the back of her skull.

And then he closed the door behind him. Stood panting over the woman who was now balled up on the floor, her blood-streaked hands spread across her head in a pathetic attempt at protection.

So far, so good. He’d stuck to the plan. The next phase should have been straightforward: smack her around a little more, throw her into the van, dump her somewhere and then give the
hospital a call.

Except that’s not how it went, was it?

What actually happened was that he got a little over-zealous. The old baseball bat became a little too verbose. Became a veritable chatterbox as it arced and swung and pummeled and smashed.

Not how it was meant to happen. Not at all.

Hell, why would he have bothered putting on a ski mask if he hadn’t intended the girl to survive? What would be the point in that?

So why the deviation? Why the fuck didn’t he just stick to the sequence of events that he outlined at the beginning?

Thinking about it now, he realizes that a part of him – a subversive element buried within his subconscious mind – has been having other ideas all along. It concocts its own, darker
plans. It allows him to think that he’s just being businesslike, that he’s just taking one logical step at a time. And when the moment is right, it asserts itself and shows him as the
monster he truly is.

And right now, looking back on what he did to that wretched human being, ‘monster’ does not seem too strong a word.

Especially since he enjoyed it so much at the time.

At Doyle’s request, he drives Rachel home in her car. He tells Amy to ride in Daddy’s car with Nadine, and waits for the whines. Instead he gets a
‘Yay!’ So much for being pleased to see him.

Doyle takes his eyes off the road for a glance at Rachel. Little more than a murmur or two has escaped her lips since they left the hospital.

No biggie, he thinks. She’s been through a lot. Me, I got plenty to say. I just can’t find the words.

‘You okay?’ he asks.

She doesn’t look at him. Just keeps staring straight ahead.

‘This is hard for me, Cal. I haven’t experienced anything like this before. It’s scary.’

‘I know, babe.’

‘I don’t know what the hell is happening to us. Who could do something like this?’

‘I really don’t know. But I’m gonna stop him. Okay? I’m gonna get this sonofabitch.’

They lapse into silence again. Doyle can sense a pressure building up in his wife.

‘You said you’d call me.’

A few simple words, but Doyle knows there’s an avalanche of emotion waiting just behind them.

‘I know. I tried. I couldn’t get through to you. Obviously you had no cellphone, and—’

‘When? When did you try?’

Be careful here, he thinks.

‘Earlier this evening. It’s been kinda hectic today.’

‘I understand. What with the death of Tony Alvarez and all.’

Shit. This ain’t gonna work out well.

‘You heard about Tony, huh?’

‘Yes, I heard. Eventually. You want to hear how my day went? I spent the morning trying to come to terms with what happened to Joe. Then I spent the afternoon doing exactly the same thing
for Tony. And for most of this evening it looked as though I would have to do it all over again. Only this time for you, Cal. For you.’

‘Look, I’m okay. We’re both okay. He was just trying to frighten us, that’s all.’

‘Well, he did a damn good job. I’ve been worried ever since you told me about Joe. And when I heard about Tony, you know what my first thought was after I got over the shock? I
thought, Christ, I need to call Cal. I need to find out what’s going on, check he’s okay. Because that’s what wives and husbands do, Cal: they check on their loved ones when bad
things are happening around them. And then I thought, No, why should I call? He should be calling me, just like he promised less than twenty-four hours ago. He should care enough to pick up the
telephone and pass on a few reassurances to his wife and daughter that he’s not wearing wings just yet.’

Her words are broken by sobs, and she brings a hand to her mouth to stifle them.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Hush. It’ll be okay.’

‘Don’t shut us out, Cal. Whatever happens, we’re in this together. Remember that.’

He just nods then. He has an answer, but he knows she’s not ready for it. Not yet.

They park the cars and congregate on the front stoop. It’s clear to Doyle that Nadine has detected a frostiness in the air that has nothing to do with the icy December
weather. When Rachel invites her in, it’s voiced without conviction. Doyle can almost see the subtitle that says,
Don’t you dare say yes to this invitation
. Nadine reads it too,
and declines despite Amy’s pleading. She says her goodbyes to each of them in turn, promising Amy that she will come to see her rabbit when she gets one, then gets in her car and drives
away.

In the apartment, all conversation is between Doyle and Amy, or between Rachel and Amy. Anxious to restore the third side of the triangle, Doyle follows Rachel into the kitchen. She keeps her
back to him as she opens and closes cabinet doors.

‘Rach.’

‘I have to fix something for Amy. She hasn’t eaten yet, and it’s already way past her bedtime.’

Her voice is flat, emotionless – her way of telling him how mad and upset she is.

‘Rach.’

‘Can you get Amy in the shower, please?’

He stays in the doorway for a while, watching Rachel and wondering how she manages to keep her back aimed in his direction no matter where she moves to in the room. Eventually he slips away.

He coaxes Amy away from the TV, bribing her with a ride on his shoulders that he feels he’s not making as much fun as it usually is. He helps her undress, and talks her into carrying her
dirty clothes to the hamper. He struggles to push all of her strands of hair under a Clifford the Dog shower cap, then lifts her into the shower and heads back to the kitchen.

Rachel is warming something up in a pan on the stove. Her arms crossed, she watches the pan like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room. Which maybe it is to her right now.

‘Amy’s in the shower,’ he says, because he needs to say something even though it does nothing to make him more interesting than the pan.

‘Thanks,’ she says over her shoulder, still not turning, still not facing him.

He leaves her to her thoughts and goes into the bedroom. He starts to do what has to be done.

In the background he hears Amy singing a nursery rhyme. Something about cheeky monkeys and what they get up to on a bed. She can hold a tune too, unlike either of her parents.

He continues with his task, but remains alert to the distant drone of family life. He smiles at Amy’s usual complaints when the shower is turned off before she’s had a chance to
flood the floor. Later, he hears the chink of cutlery against plate as she eats, her mother constantly reminding her to take another mouthful. He hears the trip back to the bathroom, the garbled
chatter of Amy as she speaks through foam while getting her teeth brushed.

These noises, devoid of interest to anyone else, are precious to Doyle. They represent normality. He bitterly resents having them stripped from him.

Five minutes later Rachel enters the room, a monotone sentence already on her lips. ‘You should say goodnight to your—’

She stops then, as she takes in what she did not expect to see.

‘What are you doing?’

Doyle straightens up, drops a clumsily folded shirt onto the bed. ‘I’m packing, Rach.’

‘Why?’ she demands, the question tainted with hurt and anger.

‘I have to get out of here.’

‘Bit of an over-reaction, wouldn’t you say? I give you one little bit of criticism—’

‘No. Rach. You don’t understand. This has nothing to do with what you said to me earlier. You were totally right about that.’

She gestures at the suitcase on the bed. ‘So, then, why?’

‘I don’t have a choice. In order to protect you, I have to leave. Simple as that.’

She shakes her head. A tiny movement of both disbelief and negation.

Doyle says, ‘Rachel, what happened in the hospital tonight was a warning. The sicko who wants to hurt me was showing us what he could have done for real, to you and Amy. He’s already
proved he has no qualms about killing people. We’ve got five dead bodies already. I don’t want to see any more, especially members of my own family. That’s why I have to go, so
he’ll leave you alone.’

‘What if I don’t want you to go? What if I think the best way for you to protect us is to be here, by my side? Does my opinion count?’

Doyle sighs. ‘That note the nurse gave me? It wasn’t the first. Whoever’s sending them keeps telling me that anyone I stay in close contact with is in danger. For whatever
twisted reasons, he wants me on my own.’