'Me?' Willard gazed at his empty notepad a moment, then looked up at Harry Wayte. 'I think you're talking absolute bollocks.'
Chapter fifteen
FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 2003, 10.30
The mortuary at St. Mary's Hospital occupies a remote corner of the sprawling inner-city site. Mid morning, sunshine spills onto the oblong of patched tarmac reserved for staff cars and undertakers' vans.
Eadie Sykes emerged from a side door and leaned back against the brickwork, grateful for the thin warmth.
No briefing, she now knew, could have prepared her for the realities of the post-mortem. Expecting some kind of variation on the operations she'd attended, she'd found herself in a butcher's shop. Her close-ups of the scalpel slicing through Kelly's waxy flesh, of the bile-green and vivid yellows of his dripping intestines, of the splintering crunch as the steel rib shears chopped through bone, had been bad enough. But what had followed once the belly and chest cavities had been exposed was to Eadie deeply shocking.
She'd often told herself she had a rare tolerance for life's uglier surprises. She could cope with the aftermath of motorway pile-ups and hard-core footage from combat zones. But the very deadness of what she'd just witnessed, the knowledge that any of us might one day become the carefully emptied carcass on the stainless steel slab, filled her with dread.
The air-conditioning vents were on the roof above her head and a breath of wind brought with it the sickly sweet smell of the next postmortem.
People like Pauline Schreck live with this smell every day of their working lives, she thought. Even in your sleep, a smell like that would never leave you. She shuddered, heading for her car. She stored the camera in the boot and retrieved her mobile from the glove box Amongst the stored messages was a number she didn't immediately recognise.
Eager to get out of this place as quickly as she could, she reversed the Suzuki into a tight turn and threaded her way back through the maze of buildings. Only when she'd emerged onto the main road, waiting for the lights to change, did she key the message tape.
A male voice, northern accent, wished her a very good morning. He'd driven down late last night. He was staying at the Marriott Hotel and he'd appreciate half an hour of her time. Might there be room in her schedule for a coffee? Mid morning? Say half ten? Eadie glanced at her watch. The Marriott was fifteen minutes away, up at the top of the city. Daniel Kelly's father was the last person she trusted herself to meet just now but she knew how important the contact might be.
When the lights changed, she hesitated for a second. Then she turned left, heading north.
Jimmy Suttle waited in his car while Winter took a look for himself. A minute later, he was back in the street. Disgust was something Suttle could recognise at twenty metres.
'Man's an animal.' Winter pulled the car door shut behind him and dug in his pocket for a Werther's Original. I told him I'd call the RSPCA.
Put him out of his misery.'
'What did he say?'
'Sod all. I think he's losing the will to live.'
'So what do we do?'
'Untie him. Clean him up. Get him out of there. If Cath wants to put in an OP, some kind of ambush, there's nothing to stop her. The Scousers won't know Pullen's gone.'
'OK.' Suttle tried to mask his disappointment. He nodded at the flats across the road. 'You want me to give you a hand?'
'Yeah… but there's something we ought to discuss first.'
'What's that, then?'
'It's about young Trudy…' Winter pushed back the passenger seat and made himself comfortable. 'You want to share anything with me?'
'Like what?'
'Like whether or not she was the bird you met yesterday.'
'I told you already.'
'Wrong, son. You told me you met her last night. I'm asking you whether she was the reason you bailed out of the house-to-house. A yes would be fine. For starters.'
It began to dawn on Suttle that Winter was serious. Not just serious, but something else too. Pissed off? He wasn't sure.
'OK.' he said carefully. 'She asked for a meet.'
'She asked?'
'That's right. Phoned up. Fixed a time and a place. Like you do.'
'Any idea why?'
'She fancies me.'
'Naturally. Any other reason?'
'She wanted to talk about' Suttle nodded across the road 'him upstairs.'
He explained about how she'd gone to Bazza on the spur of the moment, told him everything, and how worried she was about the consequences.
'I'm not surprised.' Winter nodded down at the mobile. 'Give her a ring. Invite her round for a look. Might do our friend the world of good.' He paused. 'What else?'
'Nothing else.'
'Except you shagged her.'
'I did, yeah.'
'Ever think that might not have been such a great idea? No, you didn't, did you. Just went right ahead, helped yourself. Look at me, son.' Reluctantly, Suttle's head came round. Winter might have been his father. 'Keen, was she?'
'Very.'
'Got tonight planned? The weekend? Somewhere nice? Only if I were you, I'd be thinking abroad, somewhere remote. Patagonia's nice this time of year.'
'What's the problem?' Suttle tried to defend himself. 'It just happened. These things do. We had a couple of drinks, got it on. No harm in that, is there?'
'Plenty, my friend. In case no one else has ever mentioned it, let me have the honour. Screwing the customers is a really crap move, and you're talking to someone who knows. Getting emotionally involved is even worse.'
'Who said I'm emotionally involved?'
'You went round to Pullen's first thing.' Winter nodded at the building across the road. 'Social visit, was it? Chance to compare notes? Or had you something else in mind?'
There was a long silence. Suttle was doing his best to hide his embarrassment.
'She's a kid,' he said at last. 'Christ knows what she was doing with a dosser like Pullen.'
'Or Valentine, indeed.'
'No.' Suttle shook his head. 'That was different. Turns out the thing with Valentine was platonic. They never got it on, much to her disgust.'
'She told you that?' Winter didn't bother to hide his surprise.
'Yeah, and I believe her, too.'
'So what was in it for him?'
'Dunno. Maybe he felt sorry for her. Maybe he just liked her, liked her being there, having her around. Ignore the attitude and she can be really sweet, yeah…' He nodded. 'Really sweet.'
'Maybe Valentine's gay? Or maybe he's just lost it?'
'No way.' Another shake of the head. Trude says he's been shagging her mum.'
