All very proper and above board. I don’t even think they need me any more. I’ve got an honorary title and they still ask me to oil a few wheels, but we’re not doing so badly.’
‘You’re still involved in recruitment, though?’ asks McAvoy, gesturing back towards the door, where he imagines Armstrong to be standing rigidly at attention, as the fine rain that has begun to drift past the window soaks him to the skin.
‘Oh, he’s the son of an old pal of mine,’ says Emms, plonking himself down in the armchair and taking a swig of tea. ‘Didn’t really take to the regular army. Some don’t. He lost a couple of mates first tour. Insurgents. Opened fire while him and two pals were handing out sweets to a bunch of kids. Armstrong ran. His mates didn’t. There was a video on the internet for a while of what happened to them. The worst. Not a mark on Armstrong but it hurt him. Pointlessness of it, you see? I’ll never understand it myself and we make a living as experts in these places. Managed to get him a discharge and we’re going to try him out. I’ve got our assistant head of recruitment up here this weekend with a couple of the other new boys. They’re out on a training run right now.’
‘You didn’t let Armstrong in the house,’ says McAvoy, turning away from the photographs to fix Emms with a deep stare.
‘If your wife looked like mine, would you fill your house with soldiers?’ Emms says it with a laugh, but McAvoy can tell he is serious.
‘Good point,’ he says.
After a pause, Emms shrugs and appears ready to get down to business. ‘So,’ he says, as McAvoy takes a seat in the wooden chair. ‘You wanted to talk about Anne.’
McAvoy looks away from the older man’s friendly, alert face. Suddenly, the silliness of it all hits him like a fist. He wants to be able to tell him something with substance. Something that justifies this man’s time. Justifies his own decision to drive into the middle of bloody nowhere.
‘Mr Emms …’
‘Sparky,’ he corrects.
‘About that …,’ he says, grateful for the reprieve.
‘Long story, told short. When I was a young officer I came up with a brilliant time-saving device ahead of a night out. Decided to dry my hair while still in the bath. One day, dropped the bloody hair-drier. Danced like a bloody fish on dry land for about five minutes until a pal switched the thing off. Almost cooked myself. Been Sparky ever since.’
McAvoy breathes out, impressed and appalled. ‘Ouch.’
He starts his explanation again.
‘Anyway, as I’m sure Mr Feasby said when he called, I’m involved in the investigation into Daphne Cotton’s death. Are you aware of the case?’
‘Bad business,’ says Emms, closing his eyes. ‘Poor girl.’
‘Yes.’
McAvoy pauses. Decides to plump for honesty.
‘I was there when it happened. I heard the screams. Got there a minute too late. Got knocked down by the man who did it.’
Emms simply nods. His eyes speak volumes.
‘In the wake of that crime, I’ve been looking into several other incidents. Not obviously connected, but certainly with a link that bears examination.’
‘Oh yes?’ Emms looks interested.
‘The link between the victims is their survival,’ says McAvoy. ‘Survival of an incident that killed everybody else. A former trawlerman who made it home alive when thirty-odd mates drowned was found dead in a lifeboat off the coast of Iceland just over a week ago. A bloke who set fire to his own house and killed his family was burned to death in a room at Hull Royal Infirmary. A woman who was almost butchered by a serial killer was attacked in exactly the same way in Grimsby.’
McAvoy drops his head to his hands.
‘I just don’t want Anne Montrose to be another victim.’
Emms says nothing for a while. He takes another slurp of his tea. Looks up at his photographs and then gives a nod.
‘I see where you’re coming from. Did I not hear they had somebody for that, though? Some writer bloke. Pissed off at the world, and whatnot.’
‘Russ Chandler has been charged, yes.’
A slow smile spreads across Emms’s face. ‘But you’re not convinced.’
‘I believe there are still avenues to be explored.’
‘I bet you’re going to be popular.’
‘I don’t care about being popular. I want to make sure the right person is locked up. I want to make sure nobody else gets hurt.’
‘Very commendable,’ says Emms. ‘Why Anne?’
‘She’s one of many,’ says McAvoy, looking through the glass as the landscape darkens and the rain begins to billow like unfastened sails. ‘But it fits, I suppose. I don’t know how he’s choosing them. I don’t know why he’s doing it. But …’
‘But …’
McAvoy balls his fists as he blurts out to this virtual stranger the one thought that makes him a better policeman than those around him. ‘Because if I was doing it, she’d be the one I’d do next.’
‘Method actor, are you?’
‘What?’
‘You know, De Niro and Pacino. Put yourself in the mind of the character, yeah? Live like them. Think like them. Get inside their heads, and whatnot.’
‘I don’t know if I-’
‘Makes sense,’ says Emms. ‘Well, at least I can put your mind at rest.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Anne Montrose. If you’re right about this bastard, he’s out to get people who survived properly. Cheated death, or however you want to see it. Anne didn’t. Anne’s never woken up. She’s been in a coma since it happened. She’s not a survivor. She’s just got a pulse.’
McAvoy nods, rubbing his face with his hands. He realises how unshaven he is.
‘Could you at least tell me a little about the background? What happened. Your relationship. Why the bills come to you.’
Emms raises his glasses from the chair around his neck and puts them on. Examines McAvoy with a collector’s gaze.
‘I barely knew Anne,’ he says, and shrugs. ‘She was a nice woman, from what I’m told. Loved kids. Real sweetheart. Wouldn’t get out when it made sense to. Thought she could do some good. Wrong place, wrong time. Arranged a trip for the school where she was helping and the bus blew up the second the driver turned the key. Anne was still in the open doorway, waving to the other teachers. The blast threw her clear but she hit her head. Never woke up.’
‘But why you? Why did your company get involved?’
Emms blows a long, sustained sigh that turns into a raspberry on his wet lips. He stands up and crosses to his picture walls. Pulls down an image that has been pinned in the top right corner of the boards.
‘Him,’ he says, showing McAvoy the picture.
McAvoy looks at an image of two smiling men. One is stripped to the waist, sweat greasing a boxer’s torso, and one beefy arm thrown round the neck of a tall, rangy man in combat fatigues. McAvoy squints and turns to Emms.
‘That you?’
Emms nods. ‘A younger version, anyway. Balkans. Ninety-five, maybe? I should really date these things.’
‘And the other man?’
‘Simeon Gibbons. Major, by the time he got his discharge. Trained as a chaplain but joined the front line.’
McAvoy waits expectantly.
