The Unburied Dead (39 page)

Look at the state of
this
? What? The carpet?

She begins to walk from the room.

'Don't you turn your back on me, you bitch. Don't you run my life for me, then turn your fucking back.'

She hesitates, turns. Bloonsbury has hauled himself onto his elbows, breaths coming from him in great gasps; panting; gurgling. Taylor and I watch it, uninvited guests.

'Get back here you fucker,' he wheezes at her, voice seemingly on the point of giving up. She stares down at him, all the contempt that anyone could muster in those eyes.

'Fuck off, Jonah,' she says. Words spat out, and she starts to turn away.

I look at him, not really sure what's going on. He's still got the knife in his hands. Have a brief moment, see what's going to happen. Strange vision. And it paralyses me for a hundredth of a second.

From nowhere Bloonsbury finds the strength. Picks himself up, knife clutched firmly in his hands. Almost slow motion. Blood spills from the wound in his throat; he is covered in it. Leaps towards Charlotte, knife back, every last effort into taking his revenge. She senses the rush of movement behind her, turns her head. Time for the briefest flash of panic across her face.

But he's a dying man. As the knife is on its downward sweep towards the middle of Charlotte's back, I'm on top of him, wrestling him to the floor, and he collapses under my weight. The knife falls from his hands, lies useless and blunt on the carpet.

I look up at her, at that impassive face. Panic gone, no trace of fear. Can't read a thing into it. Push myself off Bloonsbury, and the blood gurgles in his throat from some desperate dying breath. Pick up the knife; Taylor and I stand and stare at Charlotte.

She gives all she gets. Bloonsbury might just have implicated her in all of his crimes, but she'll know whether there's any proof out there. The actions of a drunk psychotic aren't going to see anyone incriminated.

'Thank you,' she says. Small voice, but steady. 'You saved my life.'

I nod. Don't say anything. Taylor and I just stare at her in the brightly lit silence. He fingers the wound on his head.

A bauble topples from the Christmas tree with a tinselly shiver, settles on the carpet. Bloonsbury suddenly coughs a bloody cough, a strangulated breath wheezes from his body. Silence broken, the spell dispersed.

'I'll call an ambulance,' she says, because she has to. Although, might she not want Bloonsbury to die where he lies?

There's something in her eyes, then she turns and is gone from the room.

Look down at Bloonsbury. Too late for an ambulance anyway; the man is dying. From the hands of Detective Sergeant Hutton. I'd like to be able to say that he's the first man I've killed, but I can't. On good days, on days when I can block out the past, when I can turn the past into another lifetime, those are the days when I could say he's the first man I've killed. There aren't many of those days.

Look at Taylor, and can tell he's thinking the same thing. We are indeed uninvited guests. Silence over the house. A clock ticking somewhere. For some reason I start wondering what Frank is doing, and will he care?

Poland, that was it. Knee deep in gorgeous Central European women.

'Go and listen, Sergeant. Make sure she calls an ambulance. And the local plods 'n all,' says Taylor.

'Aye.'

Three o'clock, New Year's Day. Watery sun low in the sky; bright afternoon with the snow still thick on the ground, frost already in the air for the night ahead. Clear, chill, fresh, a beautiful day.

Sitting in the car across the road from the old family home. Have been sitting here for over twenty minutes. Can't decide whether or not to take the giant step across the road. I don't deserve for Peggy – or for any of them – to take me back, but if I go over there, clutching the small bunch of flowers that currently lies on the passenger seat, then take me back is what they'll do. Despite being a total fuck up over he past few days, my future is there if I want it.

Caught a couple of hours sleep, some time between five and eight. Woke up feeling as completely shit as I have for the previous few days. Looks like case closed, but it'll be weeks before the stench of this vanishes; and I can still feel the warmth of Bloonsbury's blood pulsing over my hand.

The Great Detective, Glasgow's one time police hero, lies in the morgue at the Victoria. Died on his way to hospital, and they brought his body up this morning; died at the hands of Detective Sergeant Hutton. Said to someone that he was the first man I'd ever killed, but not with any conviction.

Checked out some things this morning. Our suspicions were pretty close to the mark, and anything new we've discovered has confirmed our theory.

Found out from Josephine Johnson that she spoke to Bloonsbury first on Saturday. He told her to call Herrod the following day. Set him up right from the off. Poor lassie unknowingly played her part, Herrod walked straight into it. Bloonsbury knew his man, knew he would charge round there on his own. White knight. Waited for him, then butchered him. His own man. Can't understand it, because I would've thought Herrod would've been all right to keep his gob shut. But who knows what was going through Bloonsbury's mind the last few weeks?

Found details of a car stolen from Dunoon late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Turned up in Arrochar. Fits the bill for Bloonsbury having dealt with Crow.

What else do we have? They're going back over the body of Bathurst, see if they can find any trace of Bloonsbury on there; now that they know what they're looking for.

Taylor interviewed Healy for a couple of hours. Didn't sit in on it. He wavered all over the place; psychotic to reasonable to switched-on lawyer to deranged killer. And through it all, an obsession with Josephine Johnson. To hear him speak, their relationship bordered on Romeo and Juliet for tragedy, and to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for longevity. An obsessive personality which had needed an outlet, and had found it in a woman who had run away from him. He didn't seem to think she had run away. He seemed to think that at any moment she might be coming back. He seemed to think that there were a variety of reasons why she had left, but had admitted that there was a possibility that she had chosen to leave because she was a 'bitch-slut intent on fucking as many other guys as possible' which was why he'd had to punish her.

Can you believe anything such a man tells you? Said that he was taken by Bloonsbury after he blundered into the flat of that stupid tart in Rutherglen. Thought he must have been followed. Pretty messed up in those manacles, so he lost track of night and day, but we know how long he was there.

Ian Healy should be locked up for the rest of his life, but who knows these days? Gets a decent lawyer and he'll probably have the jury feeling sorry for him because he was kidnapped by the police; and they'll let him off. We'll get enough evidence on the guy to convict a multitude of murderers, but you never can tell. Fucking lawyers.

Found Bloonsbury's prints in Crow's house and on the car that was used in the Edwards hit and run. Drunk Jonah; didn't even think to wear gloves. You just don't think to do it as an officer, do you? When you get prints, you check them against those of known criminals
–
not against your own men.

So Bloonsbury is guilty as charged on all counts. And dead with it, which is good. All the best scum get killed at the end. Saves on the trial costs, and means there isn't going to be any screw-up in the courtroom with some bloody awful jury.

Which leaves us where? Bloonsbury's gone to Hell and taken his secret with him. Charlotte Miller.

She sat watching it all in the middle of the night, as the ambulance arrived and whisked away the dying man. Guzzled expensive brandy; bottled in Roman times. Hid behind her masque of wealth and shock, all carefully constructed. Safe in what knowledge? That there was no connection between her and Bloonsbury, or this: every step of the way, after every action she has taken, she has wiped the board. There will be nothing out there to point the finger in her direction.

Can you convict anyone on the actions of someone like Jonah Bloonsbury? Maybe it was the final act of petty revenge from a dying man. To make it look as if she'd colluded with him all along. That she'd let him into her house at the end, rather than him letting himself in or breaking in. The front door was left open, remember, but that could point either way.

Yet what other proof do we have? We had our suspicions before we went down there, and the way Bloonsbury acted suggested she was part of it. But that was it. It could be that our continuing investigations will unearth something, but we both know she'll have been more thorough than that.

And so, today, she left us to it. No attempt at interference. Appeared at the station for twenty minutes. The Chief Constable turned up
–
all shiny buttons and stinking of drink
–
then left with a smile far from his face, ten minutes later.

She called me into her office just before she went. Stood in front of her in that office for the fifth time in a week. Wary rather than nervous. Wondered if I was going to hear a confession.

Not a chance.

'I'm going away for a few days,' she said.

Just a few days?
I thought. Those days will likely stretch to weeks.

'Need time to think. Get my head together. Chief Constable thinks it would be a good idea. Let things settle. The last few days have been rather hard on the station,' she said. Rather hard? Go on, Charlotte, tell it how it is. 'It all seems like some great conspiracy.'

That's exactly what it is, darlin'. And there's a good chance you're at the centre of it all.

She looked at me for a few seconds. Don't know what she was expecting me to say. Was she looking for sympathy? But I didn't give her anything. There was nothing to say. Taylor and I both suspect her of involvement and we'll do everything to get evidence of it. And fuck it if that drags me into it as well, because of what's been going on between me and her. I'll deal with that if it comes.

My bet, however, is that there'll be no evidence to find.

We're left to wonder what went on between her and Jonah Bloonsbury. Maybe it goes back all the way. Sixteen years ago to his first moment of glory and a chase across open moorland. Must have started sometime. Maybe the two of them have been in it together all along, riding the back of the other. And while Bloonsbury couldn't cope and floundered in an ocean of whisky, Charlotte Miller rode the high seas. Was going to go all the way.

'Would you come with me?' she said. A quiet, nervous voice, but I wouldn't believe that voice now no matter what the tone. Still, that request was out the blue. An electric shock. But whereas before it would have been a shock from an entire power grid, now it was like static off a jumper. 'Now that it's over, you should be able to get some time off. I'm sure Dan wouldn't mind.'

Dan
would go fucking mental. But there was nothing to worry about. There was no way I was going anywhere else with Charlotte Miller. Standing in front of her desk was as far as she was ever going to take me.

'Don't think so,' I said. Still too many things to sort out. And even if there weren't...

She swallowed. Took it well. Knew what I was thinking, I'm sure.

And that was that. She didn't say anything else, I turned my back on my infatuation of the past week and walked from her office. Closed the door behind me.

A couple of minutes later she swept out of the station. No goodbyes. We couldn't exactly lock her up just because Bloonsbury tried to kill her, but I would bet now if we find something and want to bring her in, she'll be very difficult to get hold of. It might not just be weeks that the few days turns into, but months and years. Off somewhere with her bank account and silk pyjamas.