'Fuck that,' he says angrily. 'I spoke to the bloke for three minutes. Jonah practically shoved his head up the guys arse.'
'What do you expect? Bloonsbury's dead. He couldn't pick the murderer out of a line-up of four nuns and a blood-covered guy with a chainsaw. He's finished.'
I might be giving too much credit to the four nuns there.
'Dead right he's finished. Dead right.'
Another nail in Bloonsbury's coffin. Haven't even been thinking about nails in Herrod's coffin. Healy might be our man so there's a chance Herrod's dead. And for all that he's an open sore on the backside of humanity, you never want to see this happen to one of your own.
Up into a side street, then we're parked in front of Healy's tenement. No messing about. Up the stairs, third floor. Start to slow down as we reach the top. Walk more quietly as we near the door. Green paint, slowly peeling.
We stand at the door. Deep breath. Look at each other. Nervous. This could be it, this could be nothing. Wish we'd brought guns. Taylor rings the bell and we stand and wait.
'We should be armed,' I say to him.
'Don't be a girl.'
Tries the doorbell again, gives in to the inevitable.
'Right then, John Wayne,' he says. John Wayne? 'Do your sergeant thing and kick the door in.'
Marvellous. Over fifteen years on the force and it's all I'm good for. Decide to have a go at something I saw in a movie once. Try the door handle.
With a click that echoes down the corridor, the door opens. Nice and easy. Give Taylor a look and he scowls in return.
Swing the door open, step inside. Taylor in front. Immediately feel it. The darkness, the silence. The curtains are drawn. Not a sound. Not even the faint hum of a fridge or central heating. Scary.
Taylor hits the light switch. Nothing. The electrics are out or the light bulb's gone. Either way, we're walking into a darkened house with every possibility of a psychotic killer hiding behind a door.
'We should've brought guns,' I say to him, voice low. He ignores me, starts walking slowly into the flat.
Leave the door open to let in some light. As we take the first few tentative steps, begin to notice the smell. Off milk. Not some rancid pungent stench. Just a hint of it.
The hairs start to spring up on the back of my neck. On my arms. Feel the shiver. A tightness in the chest. I hate this. Walking into the unknown. Who knows what kind of man Healy really is? If he leaps out brandishing a knife, fine, you get into a fight. Take care of it. It's the creeping around in the dark that's the problem. That's the fear. Waiting. For the shock.
I follow Taylor into a room. In the pale light from the door I can see the settee, the TV in the corner. Light behind the curtains. Taylor walks over and opens them and the grey light of another bloody cold and miserable Glasgow afternoon comes flooding in.
Look around the room, quickly behind the door; half expecting Healy to be there with an axe. Got to get a grip.
It's a sad depressing little room. Horrible 80's furniture; 15' flatscreen TV; drab wall paper, drab paintings; brown carpet; bin overflowing with rubbish; chipped coffee table, covered with magazines and photographs.
We go to look at them at the same time. Porn mags, photography mags — which pretty much look the same from the cover — newspaper supplements. They each have a picture of a woman with dark brown hair on the cover. They could be Josephine Johnson. They could be Ann Keller. They could be Evelyn Bathurst.
We look at each other. It's coming together. We have our killer. No doubt. I can feel it. If only we'd had the sense to break the door down when we first came to check on the guy.
Back out into the hall. Look into the bathroom, try the switch again, still nothing. We can see it fine, however, in the light from the other room. A nasty little room, unpleasant aroma. Move on.
Skin crawls! Feel it stretch and strangle; a noise from another room. Faint but distinct. A slight movement and then there's silence again. We are not alone.
Look at each other, walk slowly back out into the hall. Muscles tense. Every sense heightened. That smell getting stronger. Waiting for the attack. Small flat, only two rooms left. Kitchen and bedroom. Kitchen first, glance in. Can barely make it out in the dark. Large room, but plain. The fridge door is open, emits no light. A bottle of milk lies smashed on the floor. So much for the smell.
Bedroom. This is it. No light from the other room penetrates in here. We stand unsure in the doorway.
'Anyone there?' says Taylor. Silence. 'Healy?'
We wait. Nothing. Look at each other, barely make the expression out in the dark.
'Aw, bugger this,' he says after a few seconds. Walks quickly into the room, me behind. Straight to the curtains, starts to drag them open. Something scampers from underneath the bed, past our feet. Fuck! Heart jumps. Fists clenched. Realise it's a fucking cat. Look to the door as the curtains open and light pours in. No cat. It's a rat. Big and grey and ugly. Bloody huge thing.
Finally see it out the corner of my eye. Turn round. Big rat to keep my attention off this. Taylor is already staring at it. Hard to miss. On the wall beside the bed. Bloody; pale; dead. Detective Sergeant Herrod impaled through the stomach with an ornamental sword, suspended on the wall. The blood has long since stopped dripping. His mouth is open, blood congealed on his lips, his eyes stare blankly back at us. The weapon missed the tie, a subdued silk M amp;S job he must have got for Christmas. It hangs free, some of the blood from his mouth having dripped upon it. Squares of beige and blue, black marks streaked across. A new design. Shoes are gone. Herrod's feet in dirty white socks.
We stand and stare for some time. Drinking it in. One of our own, impaled on a bedroom wall. Try to get a grip on my train of thought. What it means for the murder inquiry. What it means for the station. The second officer down in two days. Think of Bernadette; bitter, she'll enjoy it in a perverse way. We stand and stare, as if expecting something to happen.
'Keep waiting for him to tell us to fuck off and mind our own business,' says Taylor.
33
Monday afternoon roundup. A bit later than usual as a result of the day's events. First one with Taylor in charge. Bloonsbury's back in the office having heard about Herrod, but he's staying out of our way. Sitting silently in his room with a bottle at his right hand. Don't know why Charlotte doesn't just send him on his way. The guy is on duty and embarrassing himself and everyone who has to come into contact with him.
Beginning to think Miller might be as far off the rails as he is, that maybe she's actually losing it. Two of her officers have been killed in the last couple of days, she's got a murder inquiry exploding out of her control, and she's lost. Saw her for a few seconds on her way to talk to the press. That self-assurance which she seemed to have earlier was gone. Pale, shocked, almost broken. She's still not returned, which is perhaps why she hasn't got hold of Jonah yet.
The door closes, the gang's mostly here. Taylor stands in front, done this loads of times. Never this big, though. Never for the killer of two of our own. Hard to fathom the feeling in the room. It wasn't as if any of us liked Herrod, the man was too personality-deficient for that, but a colleague's a colleague. If nothing else, it could have been one of us. Selfish, but that's how the mind works.
We've put an alert out for the guy. Picture in every paper, on every noticeboard. The first part of any murder inquiry is out of the way. We know who did it. Now we just have to catch him. Bloody frustrating that we had him here; locked in a cell too. And Jonah Bloonsbury decided to let him go. Don't know who to blame. Bloonsbury himself; Miller for putting him in charge in the first place; or me and Taylor for leaving him to it.
Taylor starts up.
'Right, people, here it is. I know this is hard, but we've got to think straight, be professional. There's a nutcase out there and we have to get him off the streets. We can be mad, we can be outraged, we can be depressed, we can feel guilty, whatever. But it can all wait. First off we have to be clear headed and we have to get our man.' He hesitates. 'And on that point — we all know we had him here and it was decided to let him go. If the
