cuff him,’ he said to the Constable, who instantly dashed out to oblige. ‘And if you wanted your confession,’ he said to Grey, ‘then get it while you can. You injured?’
But Grey didn’t need to answer, passing him in the doorway just in time to see Glass enter the bloodied end- room and hear his words to his fallen colleague,
‘You hold in there, love. You’ll get a medal for this.’
Chapter 27 — Rooftop Soliloquy
‘That’s an ugly weapon,’ said the young Constable still coming down after the nerves of the raid. He was stood next to Grey above the motionless and handcuffed Patrick Mars, looking to the shotgun kicked four yards away across the flat roof. ‘What were they doing with that in a shop? I mean, I could just about understand a baseball bat.’
‘Oh, you see these weapons turn up in amnesties, things you wouldn’t believe.’
The building had been flooded with reinforcements after the all-clear had been sounded, and the crowd able to mingle freely again by the shops and discuss what had just happened to them, ‘Did you see it? I could have been shot!’
Paramedics were on site and ambulances waiting on the road, though they were making sure Mars got treated last.
‘Where’s the doctor?’ he called from the ground.
‘Treating the female officer you shot,’ spat back the Constable, with anger Grey wasn’t going to reprimand.
‘Well, you shouldn’t have women on the front-line then.’
‘There wouldn’t be a front-line if…’
Grey stepped in, ‘Why don’t you try and find us both a cup of coffee?’
‘Okay, but if he tries to move, sir, shoot him.’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
Grey was left alone standing over Mars,
‘He’s got a point though, there was no point hurting her, or the shopkeeper.’
‘You’re trying to moralise me? Don’t you think I’m a little past that?’ he asked groggily.
‘Fair point.’
The man’s speaking was strained, and Grey wondered if he was really injured? After all, Derek’s screwdriver had gone in somewhere. Yet he could only see cuts and bruises, he couldn’t be any worse than his victims, and an extra paramedic would be found for him anytime now.
‘And that’s all your going to ask me?’
‘What would you have me ask you then, Patrick?’
‘Why I did it.’
‘Oh, I think we know most of it.’
‘You’ve been busy.’
‘I think you received a call from your son Peter, away in the Navy Cadets, something along the lines of, “Esther’s found some woman who was married to Granddad, who bought your painting of the bear…”’
The man’s face collapsed as he repeated his son’s words to him,
‘“She’s Esther’s tutor, lives at that old people’s place in town, by the trees.” Esther’d told him everything. Of course I knew where he meant.’
‘Peter must have trusted you, to call you.’
‘No, he just knew I’d be the only one who could confirm it. He’d already abandoned me, like the rest of them. The women I expected nothing less from, but him, I always hoped he’d come around in time.’
‘He followed your career.’
‘Yes, he did,’ he brightened. ‘I was proud of that.’
‘Your mother. Did you know?’
‘No; and I didn’t plan it, if that’s what you’re getting at; by which I mean I know what I did, but only wanted to find her that night. I didn’t know what I’d do once I got there.’
‘It was dark, everyone was watching television.’
‘I watched from by the trees at first, at the windows of all the flats, knowing she was in there somewhere. The place looked deserted, only a few of the rooms were lit. I went around the back to the door and walked straight in, I couldn’t believe it was so easy.’
‘Perhaps they still trust people there?’ said Grey; but Mars didn’t spot the jibe, continuing,
‘She had her full name on her letterbox in the hall, otherwise I wouldn’t have found her. So I followed the numbers up… and…’
‘Yes?’
‘When I got there I couldn’t move.’
‘In the corridor?’
He nodded, ‘Frozen, terrified I was running on adrenalin. I know that feeling, you see, that fear. I learnt to recognise it in my training, to notice it, and acknowledge it and not pay any attention to it; but I couldn’t, I was frozen.’
‘Until?’
‘Until I heard other feet on the stairs; young feet, skipping feet, coming higher and higher up. The end of the corridor was wild, dark and full of plants, so I ran into them, pressed up against the back wall. And then I saw her.’
‘Stella?’
‘No, Esther, coming don’t the corridor, running toward me. I mean feet away from me.
‘She went to Stella’s room?’
‘No, she stopped still and then ran off.’
‘She saw you?’
‘No, no. I was invisible.’
But she sensed you, thought Grey. It came home to him then how Mars had robbed his own daughter of the chance to know, even to have an hour speaking on equal terms with, the grandmother she hadn’t before than evening known she had. Mars, his arms handcuffed behind him, lay prostrate, increasingly uncomfortably on his back on the lightly sloping roof; and Grey could understand why the young Constable had wanted violence done unto him; and why other officers, the bad ones you read about in the papers, might at this point — a doctor yet to attend, the man’s present injuries as yet unknown, with no one watching — have wanted to land a size-nine right into his midriff, again and again till his kidneys burst and his liver couldn’t cope with the injuries to his system.
But instead he only asked,
‘What then?’
‘I stepped out, back into the light. Her door was already open, and when I went in there she was, at the end of the table, like she was waiting for me,
‘”Patrick. Well, what a day it is for surprises.”’
‘You recognised each other?’
‘Yes. She was just the same, the same eyes, face, only her hair had gone grey. “I think you have a daughter,” she said. “She’s bright. You must be very proud of her.”’
‘The daughter you hadn’t seen for, how long?’
His face screwed itself up in unfacable pain, he turning it sideward, one way and then the other as if someone held a knife to it, before gasping for air like a landed fish. The sobs came quickly now, Grey imagining the inner-horror as he summarised,
‘The mother you thought abandoned you, who you thought didn’t love you, yet who was so glad to see you; the daughter you’d already cast away, had given up on; all the love you had missed out on, all you would miss out on. You snapped?’
He nodded,
